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GLASGOW: 

ANDREW & JOHN M. DUNCAN, 
Printers to the University. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Cowley 1 

Denham . 21 

Milton 24 

Butler 53 

Rochester .- «... 59 

Roscommon 61 

Otway 64 

Waller 67 

POMFRET 83 

Dorset ........... ib. 

Stepney ...«••••••■ 84 

J. Philips 85 

Walsh 91 

Dryden ib. 

Smith 134 

Duke ............ 142 

Kino _ 143 

Sprat ............. 144 

Halifax ... 146 

Parnell ........... 148 

Garth ........... 149 

Rowe 151 

Addison 155 

Hughes . 175 

Sheffield . . '77 

Prior . . >• 179 



Page 

congreve 187 

Blackmore .......... 192 

Fenton ....... c ... 199 

Gay 202 

Granville 205 

Yalden 208 

TlCKELL ..... 210 

Hammond 212 

somervile 213 

Savage 214 

Swift 250 

Broome . • . . • 254 

Pope 256 

Pitt 314 

Thomson 315 

Watts 320 

A. Philips 323 

West 326 

Collins 327 

Dyer 329 

Shenstone 330 

Young 334 

Mallet 345 

Akenside 353 

Gray 355 

Lyttelton 360 



LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. 



COWLEY. 



THE Life of CowtEY, notwithstanding the 
penury of English biography, has been 
written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose preg- 
nancy of imagination and elegance of language 
have deservedly set him high in the ranks of 
literature; but his zeal of friendship, or am- 
bition of eloquence, has produced a funeral ora- 
tion rather than a history: he has given the 
character, not the life, of Cowley ; for he 
writes with so little detail, that scarcely any 
thing is distinctly known, but all is shown con- 
fused and enlarged through the mist of pane- 
gyric. 

Abraham Cowley was born in the year one 
thousand six hundred and eighteen. His fath- 
er was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat 
conceals under the general appellation of a citi- 
zen ; and, what would probably not have been 
less carefully suppressed, the omission of his 
name in the register of St. Dunstan's parish 
gives reason to suspect that his father was a 
sectary. Whoever he was, he died before the 
birth of his son, and consequently left him to 
the care of his mother; whom Wood represents 
as struggling earnestly to procure him a literary 
education, and who, as she lived to the age of 
eighty, had her solicitude rewarded by seeing 
her son eminent, and, I hope, by seeing him 
fortunate, and partaking his prosperity. We 
know, at least, from Sprat's account, that he 
always acknowledged her care, and justly paid 
the dues of filial gratitude. 

In the window of his mother's apartment lay 
Spenser's Fairy Queen ; in which he very early 
took delight to read, till, by feeling the charms 
of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably 
a poet. Such are the accidents which, some 
times remembered, and perhaps sometimes for- 
gotten, produce that particular designation of 
mind, and propensity- for some certain science 
or employment, which is commonly called 
genius. The true genius is a mind of large 
general powers, accidentally determined to some 
particular 'direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the 



great painter of the present age, had the first 
fondness for his art excited by the perusal of 
Richardson's treatise. 

By his mother's solicitation he was admitted 
into Westminster School, where he was poon 
distinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, to 
relate, " That he had this defect in his memory 
at that time, that his teachers never could bring 
it to retain the ordinary rules of grammar." 

This is an instance of the natural desire of 
man to propagate a wonder. It is surely very 
difficult to tell any thing as it was. heard, when 
Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a com- 
modious incident, though the book to which he 
prefixed his narrative contained his confutation. 
A memory admitting some things, and reject- 
ing others, an intellectual digestion that con- 
cocted the pulp of learning, but refused t'aa 
husks, had the appearance of an instinctive ele- 
gance, of a particular provision made by Nature 
for literary politeness. But in the autaor's 
own honest relation, the marvel vanishes : he 
was, he says, such " an enemy to all constraint, 
that his master never could prevail on him to 
learn the rules without book." He does -not 
tell that he coxdd not learn the rules ; but that, 
being able to perform his exercises without 
them, and being an " enemy to constraint," he 
spared himself the labour. 

Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, 
and Pope, might be said " to lisp in numbers ;" 
and have given such early proofs, not only of 
powers of language, but of comprehension of 
things, as to more tardy minds seem scarcely 
credible. But of the learned puerilities of 
Cowley there is no doubt, since a volume of his 
poems was not only written, but printed in his 
thirteenth year ;* containing, with other poeti- 



• This volume was not published before 1633, when 
Cowley was fifteen years old. Dr. Johnson, as well 
as former biographers, seems to have been misled 
by the portrait of Cowley being by mistake marked 
with the age of thirteen years.-— H. 
A 



COWLEY. 



cal compositions, " The tragical History of 
Pyramus and Thisbe," written when he was 
ten years old ; and " Con3tantia and Philetus," 
written two years after. 

While he was yet at school he produced a co- 
medy called " Love's Riddle," though it was 
not published till he had been sometime at 
Cambridge. This comedy is of the pastoral 
kind, which requires no acquaintance with the 
living world, and therefore the time at which it 
was composed adds little to the wonders of 
Cowley's minority. 

In 1636, he was removed to Cambridge,* 
where he continued his studies with great in- 
tenseness : for he is said to have written, while 
he was yet a young student, the greater part of 
his " Davideis ;" a work, of which the materials 
could not have been collected without the study 
of many years, but by a mind of the greatest vi- 
gour and activity. 

Two years after his settlement at Cambridge 
he published " Love's Riddle," with a poetical 
dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby ; of whose ac- 
quaintance all his cotemporaries seem to have 
been ambitious; and " Naufragium Joculare," 
a comedy written in Latin, but without due at- 
tention to the ancient models ; for it was not 
loose verse, but mere prose. It was printed, 
with a dedication in verse, to Dr. Comber, mas- 
ter of the college ; but, having neither the facil- 
ity of a popular nor the accuracy of a learned 
work, it seems to be now universally neglect- 
ed. 

At the beginning of the civil war, as the 
Prince passed through Cambridge in his way to 
York, he was entertained with, a representation 
of the " Guardian," a comedy which Cowley says 
was neither written nor acted, but rough-drawn 
by him, and repeated by the scholars. That 
this comedy was printed during his absence 
from his country, he appears to have considered 
as injurious to his reputation ; though during 
the suppression of the theatres, it was some- 
times privately acted with sufficient approba- 
tion. 

In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by 
the prevalence of the parliament, ejected from 
Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John's 
College, in Oxford ; where, as is said by Wood, 
he published a satire, called " The Puritan and 
Papist," which was only inserted in the last col- 
lection of his Works ;f and so distinguished 
himself by the warmth of his loyalty and the 

• He was a candidate thi3 year at Westminster 
School for election to Trinity College, but proved un- 
successful. — N. 

t In the first edition of thi3 Life, Dr. Johnson 
wrote, " which was never inserted in any collection 
of his worhs f but he altered the expression when 
the Uvea were Cullected into volumes. The satire 
was added to Cowley's Works by the particular di- 
rection of Dr. Johnson. — N. 



elegance of his conversation, that he gained the 
kindness and confidence of those who attended 
the King, and amongst others of Lord Falk- 
land, whose notice cast a lustre on all to whom 
it was extended. 

About the time when Oxford was surrender- 
ed to the parliament, he followed the Queen to 
Paris, where he became secretary to the Lord 
Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Alban's, and 
was employed in sucb correspondence as the 
royal cause required, and particularly in cypher- 
ing and decyphering the letters that passed be- 
tv> een the King and Queen ; an employment of 
the highest confidence and honour. So wide 
was his province of intelligence, that, for several 
years, it filled all his days and two or three 
nights in the week. 

In the year 1647, his " Mistress" was publish- 
ed ; for he imagined, as he declared in his pre- 
face to a subsequent edition, that " poets are 
scarcely thought freemen of their company 
without paying some duties, or obliging them- 
selves to be true to Love." 

This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I be- 
lieve, its original to the fame of Petrarch, who, 
in an age rude and uncultivated, by his tuneful 
homage to his Laura, refined the manners of 
the lettered world, and filled Europe with love 
and poetry. But the basis of all excellence is 
truth : he that professes love ought to feel its 
power. Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura 
doubtless deserved his tenderness. Of Cowley, 
we are told by Barnes,* who had means 
enough of information, that, whatever he may 
talk of his own inflammability, and the variety 
of characters by which his heart was divided, he 
in reality was in love but once, and then never 
had resolution to tell his passion. 

This consideration cannot but abate, in some 
measure, the reader's esteem for the work and 
the author. To love excellence, is natural; it 
is natural likewise for the lover to solicit reci- 
procal regard by an elaborate display of his own 
qualifications. The desire of pleasing has in 
different men produced actions of heroism, and 
effusions of wit ; but it seems as reasonable to 
appear the champion as the poet of an " airy 
nothing," and to quarrel as to write for what 
Cowley might have learned from his master 
Pindar to call " the dream of a shadow." 

It is surely not difficult in the solitude of a 
college, or in the bustle of the world, to find 
useful studies and serious employment. No 
man needs to be so burdened with life as to 
squander it in voluntary dreams of fictitious oc- 
currences. The man that sits down to suppose 
himself changed with treason or peculation, and 
heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his 
character from crimes which he was never with- 
in the possibility of committing, differs only 



• Barnesii Anacreonten.. — Dr. J. 



LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. 



COWLEY. 



THE Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the 
penury of English biography, has been 
written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose preg- 
nancy of imagination and elegance of language 
have deservedly set him high in the ranks of 
literature; but his zeal of friendship, or am- 
bition of eloquence, has produced a funeral ora- 
tion rather than a history : he has given the 
character, not the life, of Cowley ; for he 
writes with so little detail, that scarcely any 
thing is distinctly known, but all is shown con- 
fused and enlarged through the mist of pane- 
gyric. 

Abraham Cowley was born in the year one 
thousand six hundred and eighteen. His fath- 
er was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat 
conceals under the general appellation of a citi- 
zen ; and, what would probably not have been 
less carefully suppressed, the omission of his 
name in the register of St. Dunstan's parish 
gives reason to suspect that his father was a 
sectary. Whoever he was, he died before the 
birth of his son, and consequently left him to 
the care of his mother ; whom Wood represents 
as struggling earnestly to procure him a literary 
education, and who, as she lived to the age of 
eighty, had her solicitude rewarded by seeing 
her son eminent, and, I hope, by seeing him 
fortunate, and partaking his prosperity. We 
know, at least, from Sprat's account, that he 
always acknowledged her care, and justly paid 
the dues of filial gratitude. 

In the window of his mother's apartment lay 
Spenser's Fairy Queen ; in which he very early 
took delight to read, till, by feeling the charms 
of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably 
a poet. Such are the accidents which, some- 
times remembered, and perhaps sometimes for- 
gotten, produce that particular designation of 
mind, and propensity for some certain science 
or employment, which is commonly called 
genius. The true genius is a mind of large 
general powers, accidentally determined to some 
particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the 



great painter of the present age, had the first 
fondness for his art excited by the perusal of 
Richardson's treatise. 

By his mother's solicitation he was admitted 
into Westminster School, where he was soon 
distinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, to 
relate, " That he had this defect in his memory 
at that time, that his teachers never could bring 
it to retain the ordinary rules of grammar." 

This is an instance of the natural desire of 
man to propagate a wonder. It is surely very 
difficult to tell any thing as it was heard, when 
Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a com- 
modious incident, though the book to which he 
prefixed his narrative contained his confutation. 
A memory admitting some things, and reject- 
ing others, an intellectual digestion that con- 
cocted the pulp of learning, but refused the 
husks, had the appearance of an instinctive ele- 
gance, of a particular provision made by Nature 
for literary politeness. But in the author's 
own honest relation, the marvel vanishes : he 
was, he says, such " an enemy to all constraint, 
that his master never could prevail on him to 
learn the rules without book." He does not 
tell that he could not learn the rules ; but that, 
being able to perform his exercises without 
them, and being an " enemy to constraint," he 
spared himself the labour. 

Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, 
and Pope, might be said " to lisp in numbers;" 
and have given such early proofs, not only of 
powers of language, but of comprehension of 
things, as to more tardy minds seem scarcely 
credible. But of the learned puerilities or 
Cowley there is no doubt, since a volume of his 
poems was not only written, but printed in his 
thirteenth year ;* containing, with other poeti- 



* This volume was not published before 1633, when 
Cowley was fifteen years old. Dr. Johnson, as well 
as former biographers, seems to hare been misled 
by the portrait of Cowley being by mistake marked 
with the age of thirteen years.^-R. 
A 



COWLEY. 



cal compositions, " The tragical History of 
Py ramus and Thisbe," written when he was 
ten years old ; and " Constantia and Philetus," 
written two years after. 

While he was yet at school he produced a co- 
medy called " Love's Riddle," though it was 
not published till he had been sometime at 
Cambridge. This comedy is of the pastoral 
kind, which requires no acquaintance with the 
living world, and therefore the time at which it 
was composed adds little to the wonders of 
Cowley's minority. 

In 1636, he was removed to Cambridge,* 
where he continued his studies with great in- 
tenseness : for he is said to have written, while 
he was yet a young student, the greater part of 
his " Davideis ;" a work, of which the materials 
could not have been collected without the study 
of many years, but by a mind of the greatest vi- 
gour and activity. 

Two years after his settlement at Cambridge 
he published " Love's Riddle," with a poetical 
dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby ; of whose ac- 
quaintance all his cotemporaries seem to have 
been ambitious; and" Naufragium Joculare," 
a comedy written in Latin, but without due at- 
tention to the ancient models ; for it was not 
loose verse, but mere prose. It was printed^ 
with a dedication in verse, to Dr. Combei', mas- 
ter of the college ; but, having neither the facil- 
ity of a popular nor the accuracy of a learned 
work, it seems to be now universally neglect- 
ed. 

At the beginning of the civil war, as the 
Prince passed through Cambridge in his way to 
York, he was entertained with a representation 
of the " Guardian," a comedy which Cowley says 
was neither written nor acted, but rough-drawn 
by him, and repeated by the scholars. That 
this comedy was printed during his absence 
from his country, he appears to have considered 
as injurious to his reputation ; though during 
the suppression of the theatres, it was some- 
times privately acted with sufficient approba- 
tion. 

In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by 
the prevalence of the parliament, ejected from 
Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John's 
College, in Oxford ; where, as is said by Wood, 
he published a satire, called" The Puritan and 
Papist," which was only inserted in the last col- 
lection of his Works ;f and so distinguished 
himself by the warmth of his loyalty and the 



* He was a candidate this year at Westminster 
School for election to Trinity College, but proved un- 
successful. — N. 

■f In the first edition of this Life, Dr. Johnson 
wrote, " which was never inserted in any collection 
of his works ;" but he altered the expression when 
the Lives were collected into volumes. The satire 
watt added to Cowley's Works by the particular di- 
rection of Dr. Johnson. — N. 



elegance of his conversation, that he gained the 
kindness and confidence of those who attended 
the King, and amongst others of Lord Falk- 
land, whose notice cast a lustre on all to whom 
it was extended. 

About the time when Oxford was surrender- 
ed to the parliament, he followed the Queen to 
Paris, where he became secretary to the Lord 
Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Alban's, and 
was employed in such correspondence as the 
royal cause required, and particularly in cypher- 
ing and decyphering the letters that passed be- 
tween the King and Queen ; an employment of 
the highest confidence and honour. So wide 
was his province of intelligence, that, for several 
years, it filled all his days and two or three 
nights in the week. 

In the year 1647, his " Mistress" was publish- 
ed ; for he imagined, as he declared in his pre- 
face to a subsequent edition, that " poets are 
scarcely thought freemen of their company 
without paying some duties, or obliging them- 
selves to be true to Love." 

This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I be- 
lieve, its original to the fame of Petrarch, who, 
in an age rude and uncultivated, by his tuneful 
homage to his Laura, refined the manners of 
the lettered world, and filled Europe with love 
and poetry. But the basis of all excellence is 
truth: he that professes love ought to feel its 
power. Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura 
doubtless deserved his tenderness. Of Cowley, 
we are told by Barnes,* who had means 
enough of information, that, whatever he may 
talk of his own inflammability, and the variety 
of characters by which his heart was divided, he 
in reality was in love but once, and then never 
had resolution to tell his passion. 

This consideration cannot but abate, in some 
measure, the reader's esteem for the work and 
the author. To love excellence, is natural; it 
is natural likewise for the lover to solicit reci- 
procal regard by an elaborate display of his own 
qualifications. The desire of pleasing has in 
different men produced actions of heroism, and 
effusions of wit ; but it seems as reasonable to 
appear the champion as the poet of an " airy 
nothing," and to quarrel as to write for what 
Cowley might have . learned from his master 
Pindar to call " the dream of a shadow." 

It is surely not difficult in the solitude of a 
college, or in the bustle of the world, to find 
useful studies and serious employment. No 
man needs to be so burdened with life as to 
squander it in voluntary dreams of fictitious oc- 
currences. The man that sits down to suppose 
himself charged with treason or peculation, and 
heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his 
character from crimes which he was never with- 
in the possibility of committing, differs only 



Barnesii Anacrcontena. - Dr. J. 



C O W LE Y. 



3 



by tlie infreqnency of his Tolly from him who 
praises beauty which he never saw ; complains 
of jealousy which he never feltj supposes him- 
self sometimes invited, and sometimes for- 
saken ; fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his me- 
mory, for images which may exhibit the gayety 
of hope, or the gloominess of despair ; and dres- 
ses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis, some- 
times in flowers fading as her beauty, and some- 
times in gems lasting as her virtues. 

At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he 
was engaged in transacting things of real im- 
portance with real men and real women, and, at 
that time did not much employ his thoughts 
upon phantoms of gallantry. Some of his let- 
ters to Mr. Bennett, afterwards Earl of Ar- 
lington, from April to December, in 1650, are 
preserved in" Miscellanea Aulica," a collection 
of papers published by Brown. These letters, 
being written like those of other men whose 
minds are more on things than words, contri- 
bute no otherwise to his reputation than as 
they show him to have been above the affecta- 
tion of unseasonable elegance, and to have 
known that the business of a statesman can be 
little forwarded by flowers of rhetoric. 

One passage, however, seems not unworthy 
of some notice. Speaking of the Scotch treaty 
then in agitation : 

" The Scotch treaty," says he, " is the only 
thing now in which we are vitally concerned : I 
am one of the last hopers, and yet cannot now ab- 
stain from believing, that an agreement will be 
made j all people upon the place incline to that 
of union. The Scotch will moderate something 
of the rigour of their demands ; the mutual ne- 
cessity of an accord is visible, the King is per- 
suaded of it. And to tell you the truth (which 
I take to be an argument above aU,the rest,) 
Virgil has told the same thing to that pur- 
pose." 

This expression from a secretary of the pre- 
sent time would be considered as merely ludi- 
crous, or at most as an ostentatious display of 
scholarship ; but the manners of that time were 
so tinged with superstition, that I cannot but 
suspect Cowley of having consulted on this 
great occasion the Virgilian Lots,* and to have 
given some credit to the answer of his oracle. 



1 * Consulting, the Virgilian Lots, Sortes Virgilia- 
nae, is a method of divination by the opening of Vir- 
gil, and applying to the circumstances of the peru- 
ser the first passage in either of the two pages that 
he accidentally fixes his eye on. It is said that 
King Charles I. and Lord Falkland being in the 
Bodleian Library, made this experiment of their fu- 
ture fortunes, and met with passages equally omi- 
nous to each. That of the King was the following : 

At bello audacis populi vexatus et armis, 
Fiuibus extorris, complexu avulsus Iuli, 
Auxilium imploret, videatque indigna suorum 



Some years afterwards, " business," saya 
Sprat, " passed of course into other hands ; and 
Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, was in 
1656, sent back into England, that " under pre- 
tence of privacy and retirement, he might take 
occasion of giving notice of the posture of things 
in this nation." 

Soon after his return to London, he was 
seized by some messengers of the usurping 
powers who were sent out in quest of ano- 
ther man ; and, being examined, was put in- 
to confinement, from which he was not dismis- 
sed without the security of a thousand pounds 
given by Dr. Scarborough. 

This year he published his poems, with a pre- 
face, in which he seems to have inserted some- 
thing suppressed in subsequent editions, which 
was interpreted to denote some relaxation of 
his loyalty. In this preface he declares, that 



Funera : nee, cum se sub leges pads iniquae 
Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur : 
Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena. 
jEneid iv. 615. 

Yet let a race untamed, and haughty foes, 
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose, 
Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field, 
His men discouraged, and himself expelPd ; 
Let him for succour sue from place to place, 
Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace. 
First let him see his friends in battle slain, 
And their untimely fate lament in vain : 
And when, at length, the cruel war shall cease, 
On hard conditions may he buy his peace ; 
Nor let him then enjoy supreme command, 
But fall untimely by some hostile hand, 
And lie unbury'd on the barren sand. 

Dryden. 

Lord Falkland's: 
Non hasc, O Palla, dederas promissa parenti, 
Cautius ut sarvo velles te credere Marti. 
Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in ar- 

\ mis, 
Et praedulce decus primo certamine posset. 
Primitiae juvenis miserae, bellique propinqui 
Dura rudimenta, et nulla exaudita Deorum 
Vota, precesque meas ! 

JEaeid xi. 152. 

O Pallas, thou hast fail'd thy plighted word, 
To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword ; 
I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew 
What perils youthful ardour would pursue ; 
That boiling blood would carry thee too far, 
Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war. 
O curs'd essay of arms, disastrous doom, 
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to cornel 
Hard elements of unauspicious war, 
Vain vows to Heaven, and unavailing care! 

Dryden. 

Hoffman, in his Lexicon, gives a very satisfactory 
account of this practice of seeking fates in books » 
and says, that it was nsed by the Pagans, the Jewish 
Rabbins, and even the early Christians ; the latter 
taking the New Testament for their oracle.— H. 



COWLEY. 



" his desire had been for some days past, and 
lid still very vehemently continue, to retire 
aimself to some of the American plantations, 
and to forsake this world for ever." 

From the obloquy which the appearance of 
submission to the usurpers brought upon him, 
his biographer has been very diligent to clear 
him; and indeed it does not seem to have les- 
sened his reputation. His wish for retirement 
we can easily believe to be undissembled ; a man 
harassed in one kingdom, and persecuted in 
another, who, after a course of business that 
employed all his days and half his nights, in 
cyphering and decyphering, comes to his own 
country, and steps into a prison, will be willing 
enough to retire to some place of quiet and of 
safety. Yet let neither our reverence for a 
genius, nor our pity for a sufferer, dispose us to 
forget that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat 
■was cowardice. 

He then took upon himself the character of 
physician, still, according to Sprat, with inten- 
tion " to dissemble the main design of his com- 
ing over ;" and, as Mr. Wood relates, " comply- 
ing with th e men then in power (which was 
much taken notice of by the royal party,) he 
obtained an order to be created doctor of physic ; 
which being done to his mind (whereby he 
gained the ill-will of some of his friends) he 
went into France again, having made a copy of 
verses on Oliver's death. " 

This is no favourable representation, yet even 
in this not much wrong can be discovered. How 
far he complied with the men in power, is to be 
inquired before he can be blamed. It is not 
said that he told them any secrets, or assisted 
them by intelligence or any other act. If he 
only promised to be quiet, that they in whose 
hands he was, might free him from confinement, 
he did what no law of society prohibits. 

The man whose miscarriage in a just cause 
has put him in the power of his enemy may, 
without any violation of his integrity, regain 
his liberty, or preserve his life, by a promise of 
neutrality : for, the stipulation gives the enemy 
nothing which he had not before ; the neutrality 
of a captive may be always secured by his im- 
prisonment or death. He that is at the disposal 
of another may not promise to aid him in any 
injurious act, because no power can compel ac- 
tive obedience. He may engage to do nothing, 
but not to do ill. 

There is reason to think that Cowley promis- 
ed little. It does not appear that his compliance 
gained him confidence enough to be trusted with- 
out security, for the bond of his bail was never 
cancelled : nor that it made him think himself 
secure; for at that dissolution of government 
which followed the death of Oliver, he returned 
xnto France, where he resumed his former sta- 
tion, and staid till the Restoration. 

" He continued," says his biographer, " under 



these bonds till the general deliverance;" it is 
therefore to be supposed, that he did not go to. 
France, and act again for the King, without the 
consent of his bondsman ; that he did not show 
his loyalty at the hazard of his friend, but by his 
friend's permission. 

Of the verses on Oliver's death, in which 
Wood's narrative seems to imply something en- 
comiastic, there has been no appearance. There 
is a discourse concerning his government, indeed, 
with verses intermixed, but such as certainly 
gained its author no friends among the abettors 
of usurpation. 

A doctor of physic however he was made at 
Oxford in December, 1657; and in the com- 
mencement of the Royal Society, of which an 
account has been given by Dr. Birch, he appears 
busy among the experimental philosophers with 
the title of Dr. Cowley. 

There is no reason for supposing that he ever 
attempted practice ; but his preparatory studies 
have contributed something to the honour of his 
country. Considering botany as necessary to a 
physician, he retired into Kent to gather plants ; 
and as the predominance of a favourite study 
affects all subordinate operations of the intellect, 
botany in the mind of Cowley turned into poe- 
try. He composed in Latin several books on 
plants, of which the first and second display the 
qualities of herbs, in elegiac verse ; the third and 
fourth, the beauties of flowers in various mea- 
sures ; and the fifth and sixth, the uses of trees, 
in heroic numbers. 

At the same time were produced, from the 
same university, the two great poets, Cowley 
and Milton, of dissimilar genius, of opposite 
principles ; but concurring in the cultivation of 
Latin poetry, in which the English, till their 
works and May's poem appeared,* seemed un- 
able to contest the palm with any other of the 
lettered nations. 

If the Latin performances of Cowley and 
Milton be compared (for May I hold to be su- 
perior to both,) the advantage seems to lie on 
the side of Cowley. Milton is generally content 
to express the thoughts of the ancients in their 
language ; Cowley, without much loss of purity 
or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome 
to his own conceptions. 

At the Restoration, after all the diligence of 
his long service, and with consciousness not only 
of the merit of fidelity, but of the dignity of 
great abilities, he naturally expected ample pre- 
ferments ; and, that he might not be forgotten 
by his own fault, wrote a Song of Triumph, 
But this was a time of such general hope, that 

* By May's poem we are h ere to understand a 
continuation of Lucan's Pharsalia to the death of 
Julius Caesar, by Thomas May, an eminent poet and 
historian, who flourished in the reigns of James and 
Charles I. and of whom a life is given in the Bio- 
graphia Britaunica. — H. 



C O W LE Y. 



by the infrequency of his folly from him who 
praises beauty which he never saw ; complains 
of jealousy which he never felt; supposes him- 
self sometimes invited, and sometimes for- 
saken ; fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his me- 
mory, for images which may exhibit the gayety 
of hope, or the gloominess of despair; and dres- 
ses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis, some- 
times in flowers fading as her beauty, and some- 
times in gems lasting as her virtues. 

At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he 
was engaged in transacting things of real im- 
portance with real men and real women, and at 
that time did not much employ his thoughts 
upon phantoms of gallantry. Some of his let- 
ters to Mr. Bennett, afterwards Earl of Ar- 
lington, from April to December, in 1650, are 
preserved in " Miscellanea Aulica," a collection 
of papers published by Brown. These letters, 
being written like those of other men whose 
minds are more on things than words, contri- 
bute no otherwise to his reputation than as 
they show him to have been above the affecta- 
tion of unseasonable elegance, and to have 
known that the business of a statesman can be 
little forwarded by flowers of rhetoric. 

One passage, however, seems not unworthy 
of some notice. Speaking of the Scotch treaty 
then in agitation : 

" The Scotch treaty," says he, " is the only 
thing now in which we are vitally concerned : I 
am one of the last hopers, and yet cannot now ab- 
stain from believing, that an agreement will be 
made ; all people upon the place incline to that 
of union. The Scotch will moderate something 
of the rigour of their demands ; the mutual ne- 
cessity of an accord is visible, the King is per- 
suaded of it. And to tell you the truth (which 
I take to be an argument above all Jhe rest,) 
Virgil has told the same thing to that pur- 
pose." 

This expression from a secretary of the pre- 
sent time would be considered as merely ludi- 
crous, or at most as an ostentatious display of 
scholarship ; but the manners of that time were 
so tinged with superstition, that I cannot but 
suspect Cowley of having consulted on this 
great occasion the Virgilian Lots,* and to have 
given some credit to the answer of his oracle. 



• Consulting the Virgilian Lots, Sortes Virgilia- 
nae, is a method of divination by the opening of Vir- 
gil, and applying to the circumstances of the peru- 
ser the first passage in either of the two pages that 
he accidentally fixes his eye on. It is said that 
King Charles I. and Lord Falkland being in the 
Bodleian Library, made this experiment of their fu- 
ture fortunes, and met with passages equally omi- 
nous to each. That of the King was the following : 

At bello audacis popuh* vcxatus et armis, 
Finibus extorris, complexu avulsus Iuli, 
Auailium imploret, videatque indigna sv.orum 



Some years afterwards, " business/' says 
Sprat, " passed of course, into other hands ; and 
Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, was in 
1656, sent back into England, that " under pre- 
tence of privacy and retirement, he might take 
occasion of giving notice of the posture of things 
in this nation." 

Soon after his return to London, he was 
seized by some messengers of the usurping 
powers who were sent out in quest of ano- 
ther man ; and, being examined, was put in- 
to confinement, from which he was not dismis- 
sed without the security of a thousand pounds 
given by Dr. Scarborough. 

This year he published his poems, with a pre- 
face, in which he seems to have inserted some- 
thing suppressed in subsequent editions, which 
was interpreted to denote some relaxation of 
his loyalty. In this preface he declares, that 



Funera : nee, cum se sub leges pads iniquae 
Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur : 
Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena. 
Maeid iv. 615. 

Yet let a race untamed, and haughty foes, 
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose, 
Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field, 
His men discouraged, and himself expell'd ; 
Let him for succour sue from place to place,' 
Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace. 
First let him see his friends in battle slain, 
And their untimely fate lament in vain : 
And when, at length, the cruel war shall cease, 
On hard conditions may he buy his peace ; 
Nor let him then enjoy supreme command 
But fall untimely by some hostile hand, 
And lie unbury'd on the barren sand. 

Dryden. 

Lord Falkland's: 
Non hsec, O Palla, dederas promissa parenti, 
Cautius ut ssevo velles te credere Marti. 
Haud ignarus eram, qxiantum nova gloria in ar- 
mis, 
Et prajdulce decus primo certamine posset. 
Primitiae juvenis miseras, bellique propinqui 
Dura rudimenta, et nulla exaudita Deorum 
Vota, precesque meas ! 

jEneid xi. 152. 

O Pallas, thou hast fail'd thy plighted word, 
To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword ; 
I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew 
What perils youthful ardour would pursue ; 
That boiling blood would carry thee too far, 
Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war. 
O curs'd essay of arms, disastrous doom, 
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come ! 
Hard elements of unauspicious war, 
Vain vows to Heaven, and unavailing care !' 

Dryden. 

Hoffman, in his Lexicon, gives a very satisfactory 

account of this practice of seeking fates in books , 

and says, that it was used by the Pagans, the Jewish 

Rabbins, and even the early Christians ; the latter 

{ taking the New Testament for their oracle.— H. 



COWLE Y. 



full, that I am yet unable to move or turn my- 
self in my bed. This is my personal fortune 
here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no 
money from my tenants, and have my meadows 
eaten up every night by cattle put in by my 
neighbours. What this signifies, or may come 
to in time, God knows ; if it be ominous, it can 
end in nothing else than hanging. Another 
misfortune has been, and stranger than all the 
rest, that you have broke your word with me, 
and failed to come, even though you told Mr. 
Bois that you would. This is what they call 
monstri simile. I do hope to recover my late 
hurt so far within five or six days (though it be 
uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it,) 
as to walk about again. And then, methinks, 
you and I and the Dean might be very merry 
Upon St. Ann's Hill. You might very conve- 
niently come hither the way of Hampton Town, 
lying there one night. I write this in pain, and 
can say no more : Verbum Sapienti." 

He did not long enjoy the pleasure, or suffer 
the uneasiness of solitude ; for he died at the 
Porch-house * in Chertsey, 1667, in the 49th 
year of his age. 

He was buried with great pomp near Chau- 
cer and Spenser, and King Charles pronounced, 
" That Mr. Cowley bad not left behind hin a 
better man in England." He is represented by 
Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind ; and 
this posthumous praise may safely be credited, 
as it has never been contradicted by envy or by 
faction. 

Such are the remarks and memorials which I 
have been able to add to the narrative of Dr. 
Sprat ; who, writing when the feuds of the civil 
war were yet recent, and the minds of either 
party were easily irritated, was obliged to pass 
over many transactions in general expressions, 
and to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What 
he did not tell, cannot however now be known; 
I must therefore recommend the perusal of his 
work, to which my narration can be considered 
only as a slender supplement. 

Cowley, like other poets who have written 
with narrow views, and, instead of tracing in- 
tellectual pleasures in the minds of men, paid 
their court to temporary prejudices, has been at 
one time too much praised, and too much ne- 
glected at another. 

W T it, like all other things subject by their na- 
ture to the choice of man, has its changes and 
fashions, and at different times takes different 
forms. About the beginning of tbe seventeenth 
century, appeared a race of writers that may be 
termed the metaphysical poets : of whom, in a 



• Now in the possession of Mr. Clark, Alderman 
of London, Dr. J. — Mr. Clark was in 1798 elected 
to the important office of Chamberlain of London ; 
and has every year since been unanimously re- 
elected.— N 



criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not im- 
proper to give some account. 

The metaphysical poets were men of learning, 
and to show their learning was their whole en- 
deavour : but, unluckily resolving to show it 
in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only 
wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood 
the trial of the finger better than of the ear; 
for the modulation was so imperfect that they 
were only found to be verses by counting the 
syllables. 

If the father of criticism has rightly denomi- 
nated poetry ri%vr, fu/Mirixb, an imitative art, these 
writers will, without great wrong, lose their 
right to the name of poets ; for they cannot be 
said to have imitated any thing : they neither 
copied nature nor life ; neither painted the 
forms of matter, nor represented the operations 
of intellect. 

Those however who deny them to be poets, 
allow them to be wits. Dryden confesses of 
himself and his contemporaries, that they fall 
below Donne in wit ; but maintains, that they 
surpass him in poetry. 

If wit be well described by Pope, as being "that 
which has been often thought, but was never 
before so well expressed," they certainly never 
attained, nor ever sought it ; for they endea- 
voured to be singular in their thoughts, and 
were careless of their diction. But Pope's 
account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous : he 
depresses it below its natural dignity, and re- 
duces it from strength of thought to happiness 
of language. 

If by a more noble and more adequate con- 
ception that be considered as wit which is at 
once natural and new, that which, though not 
obvious, is, upon its first production, acknow- 
ledged to be just; if it be that which he that 
never found it wonders how he missed ; to wit 
of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom 
risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom 
natural ; they are not obvious, but neither are 
they just; and the reader, far from wondering 
that he missed them, wonders more frequently 
by what perverseness of industry they were ever 
found. 

But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the 
hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophi- 
cally considered as a kind of discordia concors ; a 
combination of dissimilar images, or discovery 
of occult resemblances in things apparently un- 
like. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than 
enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked 
by violence together ; nature and art are ran- 
sacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allu- 
sions; their learning instructs, and their sub- 
tlety surprises ; but the reader commonly thinks 
his improvement dearly bought, and, though he 
sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. 

From this account of their compositions it 
will be readily inferred, that they were Eot 



COWLEY, 



successful in representing or moving the affec- 
tions. As they were wholly employed on some- 
thing unexpected and surprising, they had no 
regard to that uniformity of sentiment which 
enables us to conceive and to excite the pains 
and the pleasure of other minds : they never 
inquired what, on any occasion, they should 
have said or done ; but wrote rather as beholders 
than partakers of human nature ; as beings 
looking upon good and evil, impassive and at 
leisure ; as Epicurean deities, making remarks 
on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of 
life, without interest and without emotion. 
Their courtship was void of fondness, and their 
lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only 
to say what they hoped had never been said 
before. 

Nor was the sublime more within their reach 
than the pathetic, for they never attempted that 
comprehension and expanse of thought which at 
once fills the whole mind, and of which the first 
effect is sudden astonishment, and the second 
rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by 
aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Great 
thoughts are always general, and consist in pos- 
itions not limited by exceptions, and in descrip- 
tions not descending to minuteness. It is with 
great propriety that subtlety, which in its 
original import means exility of particles, is 
taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of 
distinction. Those writers who lay on the 
watch for novelty, could have little hope of 
greatness ; for great things cannot have escaped 
former observation. Their attempts were al- 
ways analytic; they broke every image into 
fragments; and could no more represent, by 
their slender conceits and laboured particulari- 
ties, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, 
than he, who dissects a sun-beam with a prism, 
can exhibit the wide effulgence of a t summer 
noon. What they wanted, however, of the 
sublime, they endeavoured to supply by hyper- 
bole ; their amplification had no limits ; they 
left not only reason but fancy behind them ; 
and produced combinations, of confused magni- 
ficence, that not only could not be credited, but 
could not be imagined. 

Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, 
is never wholly lost ; if they frequently threw 
away their wit upon false conceits, they like- 
wise sometimes struck out unexpected truth : if 
their conceits were far-fetched, they were often 
worth the carriage. To write on their plan it 
was at least necessary to read and think. No 
man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor as- 
sume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions 
copied from descriptions, by imitations bor- 
rowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, 
and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, 
and volubility of syllables. 

In perusing the works of this race of authors, 
the mind is exercised either by recollection or 



inquiry ; either something already learned is to 
be retrieved, or something new is to be exam- 
ined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their 
acuteness often surprises ; if the imagination is 
not always gratified, at least the powers of re- 
flection and comparison are employed ; and, in 
the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity 
has thrown together, genuine wit and useful 
knowledge may be sometimes found buried per- 
haps in grossness of expression, but useful to 
those who know their value ; and such as, 
when they are expanded to perspicuity, and 
polished to elegance, may give lustre to works 
which have more propriety, though less copious- 
ness of sentiment. 

This kind of writing, which was, I believe, 
borrowed from Marino and his followers, had 
been recommended by the example of Donne, a 
man of very extensive and various knowledge ; 
and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of 
Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than 
in the cast of his sentiments. 

When their reputation was high, they 
had undoubtedly more imitators than time 
has left behind. Their immediate successors, 
of whom any remembrance can be said to 
remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, 
Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and 
Waller sought another way to fame, by improv- 
ing the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried 
the metaphysic style only in his lines upon 
Hobson the Carrier. Cowley adopted it, and 
excelled his predecessors, having as much senti- 
ment and more music. Suckling neither im- 
proved versification, nor abounded in conceits. 
The fashionable style remained chiefly with 
Cowley ; Suckling could not reach it, and Mil- 
ton disdained it. 

Critical Remarks are not easily understood 
without examples; and I have therefore collect- 
ed instances of the modes of writing by which 
this species of poets (for poets they were called 
by themselves and their admirers) was eminent- 
ly distinguished. 

As the authors of this race were perhaps more 
desirous of being admired than understood, they 
sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of 
learning not very much frequented by common 
readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Know- 
ledge: 

The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew; 

The phoenix Truth did en it rest. 

And built his perfurn'd nest, [shew. 

That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic 

Each leaf did learned notions give, 

And th' apples were demonstrative : 
So clear their colour and divine, 
The very shade they cast did other lights outshine. 

ON ANACREON CONTINUING A LOVER IK HIS 

OLD AGE. 
Love was with thy life entwin'd, 
Close as heat with fire is join'd ; 



COWLEY. 



A powerful brand prescribed tbe date 

Of thine, like Meleager's fate. 

Th' antiperistasis of age 

More enflamed thy amorous rage. 

In the following verses we have an allusion to 
a Rabbinical opinion concerning manna : 

Variety I ask not : give me on 
To live perpetually upon. ; 
The person Love does to us fit, 
Like manna, has the taste of all in it. 

Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge 
in some encomiastic verses : 

In every thing there naturally grows 
A balsamum to keep it fresh and new, 

If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows ; 
Your youth and beauty are this balm in yo 

But you, of learning and religion, 
And virtue and such ingredients, have made 

A roithridate, whose operation 
Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said. 

Though the following lines of Donne, on the 
last night of the year, have something in. .them 
too scholastic, they are not inelegant : 

This twilight cf two years, not past nor nex^. 
Some emblem is of me, or I of this, 

Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext, 
Whose what and where in disputation is, 
If I should call me any thing, should miss. 

I sum the years and me, and find me not 
Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new. 

That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot, 

Not trust I this with hopes ; and yet scarce true 
This bravery is, since these times show'd me you. 

Donne. 

Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's 
reflection upon Man as a Microcosm : 

If men be worlds, there is in every one 
Something to answer in some proportion ; 
All the world's riches : and in good men, this 
Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is. 

Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only 
unexpected, but unnatural, all their books are 
full. 

TO A LADY, WHO WROTE POESIES FOR RIN ' 

They, who above do various circles find, 
Say, like a ring, th' equator heaven does bind. 
When heaven shall be adorn'd by thee, 
(Which then more heav'n than 'tis will be^ 
'Tis thou must write the poesy there, 

For it wanteth one as yet, 
Then the stm pass through't twice ttPyear, 

The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit. 

Cowley. 

The difficulties which have been raised about 
Identity in philosophy, are by Cowley with still 
more perplexity applied to Love : 

Five years ago (says story) I loved you, 
For which you call me most inconstant now ; 
Pardon me, Madam, you mistake the man ; 
For I am not tbe dame that I was then ; 



No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me, 
And that my mind is changed yourself may see* 
The same thoughts to retain still, and intents, 
Were more inconstant far : for accidents 
Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove. 
If from one subject they f another move ; 
My members then the father members were, 
From whence these take their birth which now are 

here. 
If then this body love what th' other did, 
'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid. 

The love of different women is, in geographi- 
cal poetry, compared to travels through different 
countries : 

Hast thou not found each woman's breast 

(The laud where thou hast travelled) 
Either by savages possest, 

Or wild, and uninhabited 1 
What joy could'st take, or what repose, 
In countries so uncivilized as those 1 
Lust, the scorching dog-star, here 

Rages with immoderate heat ; 
Whilst Pride, the rugged northern bear, 

In others makes the cold too great. 
And where these are temperate known, 
The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone. 

Cowley. 

A loverj burnt up by his affection, is compared 
to Egypt : 

The fate of Egypt I sustain, 
And never feel the dew of rain 
From clouds which in the head appear ; 
But all my too much moisture owe 
To overflowings of the heart below. 

Cowley. 

The Lover supposes his Lady acquainted with 
the ancient laws of augury and rites of sacrifice : 

And yet this death of mine, I fear, 
Will ominous to her appear : 
When sound in every other part, 
Her sacrifice is found without an heart. 
For the last tempest of my death 
Shall sigh out that too with my breath. 

That the chaos was harmonized, has been re- 
cited of old; but whence the different sounds 
arose remained for a modern to discover : 

Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew ; 
An artless war from thwarting motions grew ; 
Till they to number and fixt rules were brought. 
Water and air he for the Tenor chose, 
Earth made the Bass ; the Treble, flame arose. 

Cowley, 

The tears of lovers are always of great poeti- 
cal account ; but Donne has extended them into 
worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, 
they may be read again. 

On a round ball 
A workman, that hath copies by, can lay 
An Europe, Afric, and an Asia, 
And quickly make that which was nothing all. 



C OWLE Y. 



So doth each tear, 
Which thee doth wear, 
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, 
. Till thy tears mixt with mine do overflow 
This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven 
dissolved so. 

On reading the following lines, the reader 
inay perhaps cry out — " Confusion worse con- 
founded:" 

Here lies a she sun, and a he moon here, 
She gives the best light to his sphere, 
Or each is both, and all, and so 

They unto one another nothing owe. 

Donne. 

Who hut Donne would have thought that a 
good man is a telescope ? 

Though God be our true glass through which we see 
All, since the being of all things is he ; 
Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive 
Things in proportion fit, by perspective 
Deeds of good men ; for by their living here, 
Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near. 

Who would imagine it possible that in a very 
few lines so many remote ideas could be brought 
together ? 

Since 'tis my doom, Love's undershrieve, 

Why this reprieve ? 
Why doth my she advowson fly 

Incumbency ? 
To sell thyself dost thou intend 

By candle's end, 
And hold the contrast thus in doubt, 

Life's taper out? 
Think but bow soon the market fails, 
Your sex Irves faster than the males, 
And if to measure age's span, 
The sober Julian were th' account of man, 
Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian. 

Cleiveland. 

Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these 
may be examples : 

By every wind that comes this way, 

Send me at least a sigh or two, 
S uch and bo many I'll repay 

As shall themselves make wings to get to you. 
Cowley. 

In tears I'll waste these eyes, 
By love so vainly fed ; 
So lust of old the Deluge punished. 

Cowley. 

All arm'diu brass, the richest dress* of war, 
(A dismal glorious sight !) he shone afar. 
The sun himself started with sudden fright, 
To see his beams return so dismal bright. 

Cowley. 

A universal consternation : 

His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws 
Tear up the ground : then runs he wild about, 
Lashing his angry tail, and roaring out. 



Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there ; 
Trees, though no wind is stirring, e>hake with fear ; 
Silence and horror fill the place around ; 
Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound. 

Cowley. 

Their fictions were often violent and unnatural. 

OF HIS MISTRESS BATHING. 

The fish around her crowded, as they do 

To the false light that treacherous fishers show, 

And all with as much ease might taken be, 

As she at first took me : 

For ne'er did light so clear 

Among the waves appear, 
Though every night the sun himself set there. 

Cowley. 

the poetical effects of a lover's name 
upon glass. 

My name engraved herein 
Doth contribute my firmness to this glass ; 

Which, ever since that charm, hath been 
As hard as that which graved it was. 

Donne. 

Their conceits were sentiments slight and 
trifling. 

ON AN INCONSTANT WOMAN. 

He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, 

And no breath stirring hears, 
In the clear heaven of thy brow, 

No smallest cloud appears. 
He sees thee gentle, fair, and gay, 
( And trusts the faithless April of thy May. 

Cowley. 

upon a paper written with the juice of 
lemon, and read by the fire. 

Nothing yet in thee is seen, 

But when a genial heat warms the 3 within, 

A new-born wood of various lines there grows ; 

Here buds an L, and there a B, 

Here spouts a V, and there a T, 
And all the flourishing letters stand in rows. 

Cowley. 

As they sought only for novelty, they did not 
much inquire whether their allusions were to 
things high or low, elegant or gross : whether 
they compared the little to the great, or the great 
to the little. 

PHYSIC AND CHIRURGERY FOR A LOVER. 

Gently, ah gently, madam, touch 
The wound, which you yourself have made ; 

That pain must needs be very much, 
Which makes me of your hand afraid. 

Cordials of pity give me now, 

For I too weak of purgings grow. 

COWLKT. 

THE WORLD AND A CLOCK. 

Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face 
Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace j 



10 



COWLEY. 



<Great Nature's well-set clock in pieces took ; 
On all the springs and smallest wheels did look 
Of life and motion, and with equal art 
Made up the whole again of every part. 

Cowley. 

A coal-pit has not often found its poet ; but, 
that it may not want its due honour, Cleiveland 
has paralleled it with the sun: 

The moderate value of our guiltless ore 
Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore ; 
Yet why should hallow'd vestal's sacred shrine 
Deserve more honour than a flaming mine 1 
These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be, 
Than a few embers, for a deity. 
Had he our pits, the Persian would admire 
No sun, but warm 's devotion at our fire ; 
He'd leave the trotting whipster, and prefer 
Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner. 
For wants he heat, or fight 1 or would have store, 
Of both? 'tis here : and what can suns give more ? 
Nay, what's the sun, but in a different name, 
A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame 1 
Then let this truth reciprocally run, 
The sun's heaven's coalery, and coal's our sun. 

DEATH, A VOTAGE. 

No family 
E'er rigg'd a soul for heaven's discovery, 
With whom more venturers might boldly dare 
Venture their stakes, with him in joy to share. 

Donne. 

Their thoughts and expressions were some- 
times grossly absurd, and such as no figures or 
license can reconcile to the understanding. 

A LOVER NEITHER DEAD NOR ALIVE. 

Then down I laid my head 

Down on cold earth ; and for a while was dead, 

And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled ; 

Ah, sottish soul, said I, 

When back to its cage again I saw it fly ; 

Fool to resume her broken chain, 

And row her galley here again 1 

Fool, to that body to return 
Where it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn ! 
Once dead, how can it be, 
Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, 
That thou should'st come to live it o'er again in me 1 

a lover's heart, a hand grenado. 

Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come 

Into the self-same room ; 

'Twill tear and blow up all within, 
Like a grenado shot into a magazin. 
Then shall love keep the ashes, and torn parts, 

Of both our broken hearts : 

Shall out of both one new one make : 
From hers th' allay, from mine the metal take. 

CoffLEr. 

the poetical propagation of light. 

Hie prince's favour is diffus'd o'er all, 
From which all fortunes, names, and natures fall : 
Then from those wombs of stars, the bride's bright 
eyes 
At every glance a constellation flie3 



And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent, 
In light and power, the all-eyed firmament : 

First her eye kiadles other ladies' eyes, 
Then from their beams their jewels' lustres rise : 

And from their jewels torches do take fire, 

And all is warmth, and light, and good desire. 

Donne. 

They were in very little care to clothe their 
notions with elegance of dress, and therefore 
miss the notice and the praise which are often 
gained by those who think less, but are more di- 
ligent to adorn their thoughts. 

That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than 
in reality, is by Cowley thus expressed : 

Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand, 
Than woman can be placed by Nature's hands 
And I must needs, I'm sure, a loser be, 
To change thee as thou'rt there, for very thee. 

That prayer and labour should co-operate, are 
thus taught by Donne : 

In none but us are such mix'd engines found, 
As hands of double ofiice ; for the ground 
We till with them ; and them to heaven we raise ; • 
Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays. 
Doth but one half, that's none. 

By the same author, a common topic, the dan- 
ger of procrastination, is thus illustrated : 

That which I should have begun 



In my youth's morning, now late must be done ; 
And I, as giddy travellers must do, 
Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost 
Light and strength, dark and tired, mxist then rido 
post. 

All that man has to do is to live and die ; the 
sum of humanity is comprehended by Donne in 
the following lines : 

Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie , 

After enabled but to suck and cry. 

Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor inn 

A province pack'd up in two yards of skin, 

And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage 

Of sicknesses, or their true mother, age. 

But think that death hath now enfranchis'd thee ; 

Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty ; 

Think, that a rusty piece discharg'd is flown 

In pieces, and the bullet is his own, 

And freely flies ; this to thy soul allow, 

Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch'd but 



They were sometimes indelicate and disgust- 
ng. Cowley thus apostrophises beauty : 

Thou tyrant, which leav'st no man free ! 

Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be ! 
Thou murtherer, which hast kill'd ; and devil, 
which wouldst damn me 1 



T hus he addresses his mistress : 

Thou who, in many a propriety, 
So truly art the sun to me, 



COWLEY. 



11 



Add one more likeness, ■which I'm sure you can, 
And let uie and my sun beget a man. 

Thus he represents the meditations of a lover : 

Though in my thoughts scarce any tracts have been 
So much as of original sin, 
Such charms thy beauty wears, as might 
Desires in dying confest saints excite. 

Thou with strange adultery 
Dost in each breast a brothel keep ; 

Awake all men do lust for thee, 
And some enjoy thee when they sleep. 

THE TRUE TASTE OF TEARS. 

Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come, 
And take my tears, which are love's wine, 

And try your mistress' tears at home ; 

For all are false, that taste not just like mine. 

Donne. 

This is yet more indelicate : 

As the swset sweat of roses in a still, 

As that which from chaf'd musk-cats' pores doth 

trill, 
As the almighty balm of the early East ; 
Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. 
And on her neck her skin such lustre sets, 
They seem no sweat-drops, but pearl coronets : 
Hank, sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles 

Donne. 

Their expressions sometimes raises horror, 
when they intend perhaps to be pathetic : 

As men in hell are from diseases free, 
So from all other ills am I, 
"Free from their known formality : 

But all pains eminently lie in thee. 

Cowley. 

They were not always strictly curious, whether 
the opinions from which they drew their illus- 
trations were true; it was enough tBat they 
were popular. Bacon remarks, that some 
falsehoods are continued by tradition, because 
they supply commodious allusions. 

It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke 
In vain it something would have spoke ; - 
The love within too strong for't was, 
Like poison put into a Venice-glass. 

Cowley. 

In forming descriptions, they looked out, not 
for images, but for conceits. Night has been a 
common subject, which poets have contended to 
adorn. Dryden's Night is well known ; Donne's 
is as follows : 

Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest : 
Time's dead low- water; when all minds divest 
To-morrow's business ; when the labourers have 
Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave, 
Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this ; 
Now when the client, whose last hearing is 
To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man, 
Who, when he opes his eyes, may shut them then 



Again by death, although sad watch he keep, 
Doth practise dying by a little sleep ; 
Thou at this midnight seest me. 

It must be however confessed of these writers, 
that if they are upon uncommon subjects often 
unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle ; yet, where 
scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, 
their copiousness and acuteness may justly be 
admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope 
shows an unequalled fertility of invention : 

Hope, whose weak being ruin'd i?, 

Alike if it succeed and if it miss ; 
Whom good or ill does equally confoi nil. 
And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound ; 

Vain shadow ! which dost vanish quite 

Both at full noon and perfect night/ 
" The stars have not a possibility 

Of blessing thee ! 
If things then from their end we happy call, 
'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. 

Hope, thou bold taster of delight, 

Who, whilst thou should'st but taste, devour'st it 

Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st u& poor, 

By clogging it with legacies before ! 

The joys which we entire should wed, 

Come deflower'd virgins to our bed : 
Good fortunes without gain imported be, 

Such mighty custom's paid to thee : 
For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste, 
If it take air before its spirits waste. 

To the following comparison of a man that 
travels and his wife that stays at home, with a 
pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether 
absurdity or ingenuity has better claim : 

Our two souls, therefore, which are one, 

Though I must go, endure not yet 
A breach, but an expansion, 

Like gold to airy thinness beat. 
If they be two, they are two so 

As stiff twin compasses are two ; 
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show 

To move, but doth if th' other do. 
And though it in the centre sit, 

Yet, when the other far doth roam 
It leans and hearkens after it, 

And grows erect as that comes home. 
Such wilt thou be to me, who must, 

Like th' other foot obliquely run. 
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 

And makes me end where I begun. 

Donne. 

In all these examples it is apparent, that what- 
ever is improper or vicious is produced by a vo- 
luntary deviation from nature in pursuit of 
something new and strange ; and that the writ- 
ers faQ to give delight by their desire of exciting 
admiration. 

Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a general 
representation of the style and sentiments of the 
metaphysical poets, it is now proper to examine 
particularly the works of Cowley, who was al- 
most the last of that race, and undoubtedly th* 
best. 



12 



C O W L E Y. 



His Miscellanies contain a collection of short 
compositions, written, some as they were dic- 
tated hy a mind at leisure, and some as they 
were called forth by different occasions, with 
great variety of style and sentiment, from bur- 
lesque levity to awful grandeur. Such an as- 
semblage of diversified excellence no other poet 
has hitherto afforded. To choose the best, 
among many good, is one of the most hazardous 
attempts of criticism. I know not whether 
Scaliger himself has persuaded many readers to 
join with him in his preference of the two fa- 
vourite odes, which he estimates in his raptures 
at the value of a kingdom. I will, however, 
venture to recommend Cowley's first piece, 
which ought to be inscribed " To my Muse," 
for want of which the second couplet is without 
reference. When the title is added, there will 
still remain a defect ; for every piece ought to 
contain in itself whatever is necessary to make 
it intelligible. Pope has some epitaphs with- 
out names ; which are therefore epitaphs to be 
let, occupied indeed for the present, but hardly 
appropriated. 

The Ode on Wit is almost without a rival. It 
was about the time of Cowley that wit, which 
had been till then used for intellection, in contra- 
distinction to will, took the meaning, whatever 
it be, which it now bears. 

Of all the passages in which poets have exem- 
plified their own precepts, none will easily be 
found of greater excellence than that in which 
Cowley condemns exuberance of wit : 

Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part, 

That shows more cost than art. 
Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear ; 

Rather than all things wit, let none be tfiere. 

Several lights will not be seen, 

If there be nothing else between. 

Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' the sky, 

If those be stars which paint the galaxy. 

In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every 
man of his time was proud to praise, there are, 
as there must be in all Cowley's compositions, 
some striking thoughts, but they are not well 
wrought. His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is 
vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts is 
easy and natural ; and the conclusion, though a 
little weakened by the intrusion of Alexander, 
is elegant and forcible. 

It may be remarked, that in this Elegy, and 
in most of his encomiastic poems, he has forgot- 
ten or neglected to name his heroes. 

In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is 
much praise, but little passion ; a very just and 
ample delineation of such virtues as a studious 
privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence 
as a mind not yet called forth to action can dis- 
play. He knew how to distinguish, and how to 
commend, the qualities of his companion ; but, 
when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets 



to weep himself, and diverts his sorrow by 
imagining how his crown of bays, if he had it, 
would crackle in the fire. It is the odd fate of 
this thought to be the worse for being true. 
The bay leaf crackles remarkably as it burns 
as therefore this property was not assigned it by 
chance, the mind must be thought sufficiently 
at ease that could attend to such minuteness of 
physiology. But the power of Cowley is not so 
much to move the affections, as to exercise the 
understanding. 

The Chronicle is a composition unrivalled 
and alone : such gayety of fancy, such facility of 
expression, such varied similitude, such a sue 
cession of images, and such a dance of words, it 
is in vain to expect except from Cowley. His 
strength always appears in his agility ; his vola- 
tility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound 
of an elastic mind. His levity never leaves his 
learning behind it ; the moralist, the politician, 
and the critic, mingle their influence even in 
this airy frolic of genius. To such a perfor- 
mance, Suckling could have brought the gayety 
but not the knowledge: Dryden could have 
supplied the knowledge, but not the gayety. 

The verses to Davenant, which are vigorous- 
ly begun, and happily concluded, contain soma 
hints of criticism very justly conceived and hap- 
pily expressed. Cowley's critical abilities have 
not been sufficier tly observed ; the few decisions 
and remarks, which his prefaces and his notes 
on the Davideis supply, were at that time ac- 
cessions to English literature, and show such 
skill as raises our wish for more examples. 

The lines from Jersey are a very curious and 
pleasing specimen of the familiar descending to 
the burlesque. 

His two metrical disquisitions for and against 
Reason, are no mean specimens of metaphysical 
poetry. The stanzas against knowledge pro- 
duce little conviction. In those which are in^ 
tended to exalt the human faculties, reason has 
its proper task assigned it ; that of judging, not 
of things revealed, but of the reality of revela- 
tion. In the verses for Reason, is a passage 
which Bentley, in the only English verses 
which he is known to have written, seems to 
have copied, though with the inferiority of an 
imitator. 

The Holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine 

With thousand lights of truth divine, 

So numberless the stars, that to our eye 

It makes all but one galaxy. 

Yet reason must assist too ; for, in seas 

So vast and dangerous as these, 

Our course by stars above we cannot know 

Without the compass too below. 

After this says Bentley.* 

Who travels in religious jars, 

Truth mix'd with error, shade with rays, 

* Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. v. — R. 



COWLEY. 



13 



Like Whiston wanting pyx or star*, 
In ocean wide or sinks or strays. 

Cowley seems to Lave had what Milton is be- 
lieved to have wanted, the skill to rate his own 
performances hy their just value, and has there- 
fore closed his Miscellanies with the verses 
upon Crashaw, which apparently excel all that 
have gone before them, and in which there are 
beauties which common authors may justly 
think not only above their attainment, but 
above their ambition. 

To the Miscellanies succeed the Anacreontics, 
or paraphrastical translations of some little 
poems, which pass, however justly, under the 
name of Anacreon. Of these songs dedicated 
to festivity and gayety, in which, even the mo- 
rality is voluptuous, and which teach nothing 
but the enjoyment of the present day, he has 
given rather a pleasing, than a faithful, repre- 
sentation, having retained their sprightliness, but 
lost their simplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, 
like the Homer of Pope, has admitted the 
decoration of some modern graces, by which he 
is undoubtedly more amiable to common readers, 
and perhaps, if they would honestly declare 
their own perceptions, to far the greater part of 
those whom courtesy and ignorance are content 
to style the learned. 

These little pieces will be found more finished 
in their kind than any other of Cowley's works. 
The diction shows nothing of the mould of 
time, and the sentiments are at no great dis- 
tance from our present habitudes of thought. 
Real mirth must always be natural, and nature 
is uniform. Men have been wise in very dif- 
ferent modes ; but they have always laughed 
the same way. 

Levity of thought naturally produced famili- 
arity of language, and the familiar part of lan- 
guage continues long the same : the dialogue of 
comedy, when it is transcribed from popular 
manners and real life, is read from age to age 
with equal pleasure. The artifices of inversior , 
by which the established order of words is 
changed, or of innovation, by which new words 
or meanings of words are introduced, is prac- 
tised, not by those who talk to be understood, 
but by those who write to be admired. 

The Anacreontics therefore of Cowley give 
now all the pleasure which they ever gave. If 
he was formed by nature for one kind of writ- 
ing more than for another, his power seems to 
have been greatest in the familiar and the fes- 
tive. 

The next class of his poems is called The Mis- 
IresSf of which it is not necessary to select any 
particular pieces for praise or censure. They 
have all the same beauties and faults, and nearly 
in the same proportion. They are written with 
exuberance of wit, and with copiousness of 
learning ; and it is truly asserted by Sprat, that 



the plenitude of the writer's knowledge flows it 
upon his page, so that the reader is commonrj 
surprised into some improvement. But, consi- 
dered as the verses of a lover, no man that haf 
eA'er loved, will much commend them. They 
are neither courtly nor pathetic, have neithe* 
gallantry nor fondness. His praises are too far 
sought, and too hyperbolical, either to express 
love or to excite it ; every stanza is crowded 
with darts and flames, with wounds and deatn, 
with mingled souls and with broken hearts. 

The principal artifice by which The Mistress 
is filled with conceits, is very copiously dis- 
played by Addison. Love is by Cowley, as by 
other poets, expressed metaphorically by flame 
and fire ; and that which is time of real fire, is 
said of love, or figurative fire ; the same word 
in the same sentence retaining both significa- 
tions. Thus, " observing the cold regard of 
his mistress's eyes, and at the same time their 
power of producing love in him, he considers 
them as burning glasses made of ice. Finding 
himself able to live in the greatest extremities 
of love, he concludes the torrid zone to be habi- 
table. Upon the dying of a tree on which he 
bad cut his loves, he observes that his flames 
had burnt up and withered the tree." 

These conceits Addison calls mixed wit ; that 
is, wit which consists of thoughts true in one 
sense of the expression, and false in the other. 
Addison's representation is sufficiently indul- 
gent : that confusion of images may entertain 
for a moment; but, being unnatural, it soon 
grows wearisome. Cowley delighted in it, as 
much as if he had invented it ; but, not to men- 
tion the ancients, he might have found it full- 
blown in modern Italy. Thus Sannazaro : 

Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis ! 

Uror, et heu ! nostro manat ab igne liquor : 
Sunt Nilus, sumque JEtna simul ; restringite flamma 

O lacrimal, aut lacrimas ebibe flamma meas. 

One of the severe theologians of that time 
censured him as having published a book of pro- 
fane and lascivious verses. From the charge of 
profaneness, the constant tenor of his life, which 
seems to have been eminently virtuous, and the 
general tendency of his opinions, w T hich discover 
no irreverence of religion, must defend him; but 
that the accusation of lasciviousness is unjust, the 
perusal of his work will sufficiently evince. 

Cowley's Mistress has no power of seduction: 
she " plays round the head ; but 'reaches not the 
heart." Her beauty and absence, her kindness 
and cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, pro- 
duce no correspondence of emotion. His poeti- 
cal account of the virtues of plants and colours 
of flowers, is not perused with more sluggish 
frigidity. The compositions are such as might 
have been written for penance by a hermit, or 
for hire by a philosophical rhymer who had onljr 



14 



COWLEY. 



neard of another sex ; foi* they turn the mind only 
on the writer, whom, without thinking on a 
woman hut as the subject for his task, we some- 
times esteem as learned, and sometimes despise 
as trifling, always admire as ingenious, and al- 
ways condemn as unnatural. 

The Pindaric Odes are now to he considered ; 
a species ef composition, which Cowley thinks 
Pancirolus might have counted in " his list of 
the lost inventions of antiquity," and which he 
has made a hold and vigorous attempt to re- 
cover. 

The purpose for which he has paraphrased 
an Olympic and Nemsean Ode is by himself suffi- 
ciently explained. His endeavour was, not to 
" show precisely what Pindar spoke, but his 
manner ot speaking". He was theretore not at 
all restrained to his expressions, nor much to hi» 
sentiments ; nothing was required of him, but 
not to write as Pindar would not have written. 

Of the Olympic Ode, the beginning is, I think, 
above the original in elegance, and the conclu- 
sion below it in strength. The connexion is 
supplied with great perspicuity ; and thoughts, 
which to a reader of less skill seem thrown to- 
gether by chance, are concatenated without any 
abruption. Though the English Ode cannot be 
called a translation, it may be very properly con- 
sulted as a commentary. 

The spirit of Pindar is indeed not every where 
equally preserved. The following pretty lines 
are not such as his deep mouth was used to 
pour! 

Great Rhea's son, 
If in Olympus top, where thou 
Sitt'st to behold thy sacred show, 
If in Alpheus' silver flight, 
If in my verse thou take delight, 
My verse, great Rhea's son, which is, 
Lofty as that and smooth as this. 

In the Nemsean Ode the reader must, in mere 
justice to Pindar, observe, that whatever is said 
of " the original new moon, her tender forehead 
and her horns," is superadded by hisparaphrast, 
who has many other plays of words and fancy 
unsuitable to the original, as — 

The table, free for every guest, 
No doubt will thee admit, 
And feast more upon thee, than thou on it. 

He sometimes extends his author's thoughts 
without improving them. In the Olympionic, 
an oath is mentioned in a single word, and Cow- 
ley spends three lines in swearing by the Cas- 
sation stream. We are told of Theron's bounty, 
with a hint that he had enemies, which Cowley 
thus enlarges in rhyming prose : 

But in this thankless world the giver 
I9 envied even by the receiver ; 
'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion 
Rather to hide then own the obligation ; 



Nay, 'tis much worse than so ; 
It now an artifice does grow 
Wrongs and injuries to do, 
Lest men should think we owe. 

It is hard to conceive that a man of ' he first 
rank in learning and wit, when he was dealing 
out such minute morality in such feeble diction, 
could imagine, either waking or dreaming, that 
he imitated Pindar. 

In the following odes, where Cowley chooses 
his own subjects, he sometimes rises to dignity 
truly Pindaric; and, if some deficiencies of 
language be forgiven, his strains are such as 
those of the Theban Bard were to his contem- 
poraries : 

Begin the song, and strike the living lyre : 
Lo how the years to come, a numerous and well- 
fitted quire, 
All hand in hand do decently advance, 
And to my song with smooth and equal measure 

dance; 
While the dance lasts, how long soe'er it be, 
My music's voice shall bear it company ; 
T'ill all gentle notes be drown'd 
In the last trumpet's dreadful sound. 

After such enthusiasm, who will not lament 
to find the poet conclude with lines like these : 

But stop, my Muse — 
Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, 
Which does to rage begin — 
— 'Tis an unruly and a hard mouth'd horse — 
'Twill no unskilful touch endure, 
But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure. 

The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the 
writers of the metaphysical race, is that of pur- 
suing his thoughts to the last ramifications, by 
which he loses the grandeur of generality ; for 
of the greatest things the parts are little ; what 
is little can be but pretty, and by claiming 
dignity, becomes ridiculous. Thus all the power 
of description is destroyed by a scrupulous 
enumeration ; and the force of metaphors is lost, 
when the mind by the mention of particulars 
is turned more upon the original than the secon- 
dary sense, more upon that from which the il- 
lustration is drawn than that to which it is ap- 
plied. 

Of this we have a very eminent example in 
the ode, entitled The Muse, who goes to take 
the air, in an intellectual chariot, to which he 
harnesses Fancy and Judgment, Wit and Elo- 
quence, Memory and Invention. How he dis- 
tinguished Wit from Fancy, or how Memory 
could properly contribute to Motion, he has not 
explained ; we are however content to suppose 
that he could have justified his own fiction, and 
wish to see the Muse begin her career; but 
there is yet more to be done. 

Let the postilw?i Nature mount, and let 
The coachman Art be set : 



COWLEY. 



15 



And let the airy footmen, running all beside, 
Make a long row of goodly pride ; 
Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences, 
In a well-worded dress, 

And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and use- 
ful lies, 
In all their gaudy liveries. 

Every mind is now disgusted with this cum- 
ber of magnificence ; yet I cannot refuse myself 
the four next lines : 

Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne, 
And bid it to put on ; 
For long though cheerful is the way, 
And lif~, alas I allows but one ill winter's day. 

In the same ode, celebrating the power of the 
Muse, he gives her prescience, or, in poetical lan- 
guage, the foresight of events hatching in f utu - 
rity ; hut, having once an egg in his mind, he 
cannot forbear to show us that he knows what 
an egg contains : 

Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep, 
And there with piercing eye 
Through the firm shell and the thick white dost spy 

Years to come a-forming-lie, 
Close in their sacred secundine asleep. 

The same thought is more generally, and there- 
fore more poetically expressed by Casimir, a 
writer who has many of the beauties and faults 
of Cowley. 

Omnibus Mundi Dominator horis 
Aptat urgendas per inane pennas, 
Pars adhuc nido latet, et futures 
Crescit in annos. 

Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to 
have been carried, by a kind of destiny, to the 
light and the familiar, or to conceits which re- 
quire still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter 
in the Red Sea new dies the water's name; and 
England, during the civil war, was Albion no 
more, nor to be named from white. It is sure- 
ly by some fascination not easily surmounted, 
that a writer, professing to revive the noblest and 
highest, writing in verse, makes this address to 
the new year : 



Nay, if thou lov'st me, gentle year, 

Let not so much as love be there, 

Vain fruitless love I mean ; for, gentle year, 

Although I fear 
There's of this caution little need, 

Yet, gentle year, take heed 

How thou dost make 

Such a mistake ; 
Such love I mean alone 

As by thy cruel predecessors has been shown ; 
For though I have too much cause to doubt it, 
I fain would try for once, if life can live without i^. 



The reader of this will be inclined to cry out 
with Prior, 

" Ye critics, Bay, 
How poor to this was Pindar's style ! " 

Even those who cannot perhaps find in the 
Isthmian or Nemsean songs what antiquity has 
disposed them to expect, will at least see that 
they are ill-represented by such puny poetry ; 
and all will determine that if this be the old 
Theban strain, it is not worthy of revival. 

To the disproportion and incongruity of 
Cowley's sentiments must be added the uncer- 
tainty and looseness of his measures. He takes 
the liberty of using in any place a verse of any 
length, from two syllables to twelve. The 
verses of Pindar have, as he observes, very little 
harmony to a modern ear ; yet by examining the 
syllables, we perceive them to be regular, and 
have reason enough for supposing that the an- 
cient audiences were delighted with the sound. 
The imitator ought therefore to have adopted 
what he found, and to have added what was 
wanting; to have preserved a constant return 
of the same numbers, and to have supplied 
smoothness of transition and continuity of 
thought. 

It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the " irregu- 
larity of numbers is the very thing which makes 
that kind of poesy fit for all manner of sub- 
jects." But he should have remembered, that 
what is fit for every thing can fit nothing well. 
The great pleasure of verse arises from the 
known measure of the lines, and uniform struc- 
ture of the stanzas, by which the voice is regu- 
lated, and the memory relieved. 

If the Pindaric style be, what Cowley thinks 
it, "the highest and noblest kind of writing in 
verse," it can be adapted only to high and noble 
subjects ; and it will not be easy to reconcile 
the poet with the critic, or to conceive how that 
can be the highest kind of writing in verse, 
which, according to Sprat, " is chiefly to be pre- 
ferred for its near affinity to prose." 

This lax and lawless versification so much 
concealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flat- 
tered the laziness of the idle, that it immediate- 
ly overspread our books of poetry ; all the boys 
and girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they 
that could do nothing else, could write like Pin- 
dar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and 
disorder tried to break into the Latin; a poem* 
on the Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds 
of verse are shaken together, is unhappily in • 
serted in the " Musae Anglicanse. " Pindarism 



* First published in quarto, 1669, under the title of 
" Carmen Pindaricum in Theatrum Sheldonianuni 
in solennibus magnifici Operis Encseniis, Recitatum 
Julii die 9, Anno 1669, a Crobetto Owen, A, B.^Ed. 
Chr. Alumno Authore." — R. 



16 



COWLEY. 



prevailed about half a century ; but at last died 
gradually away, and other imitations supply its 
place. 

The Pindaric Odes have so long enjoyed the 
highest degree of poetical reputation, that I am 
not willing to dismiss them Avith unabated cen- 
sure ; and surely, though the mode of their 
composition be erroneous, yet many parts de- 
serve at least that admiration which is dufc to 
great comprehension of knowledge, and greaf; 
fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often 
new, and often striking ; but the greatness of 
one part is disgraced by the littleness of another ; 
and total negligence of language gives the no- 
blest conceptions the appearance of a fabric 
august in the plan, but mean in the materials. 
Yet surely those verses are not without a just 
claim to praise ; of which it may be said with 
truth, no man but CoAvley could have written 
them. 

The Davideis now remains to be considered ; 
a poem which the author designed to have ex- 
tended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no 
scruple of declaring, because the iEneid had 
that number : but he had leisure or perseverance 
only to write the third part. Epic poems have 
been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, 
and Cowley. That we have not the whole Da- 
videis is, however, not much to be regretted; for 
in this undertaking, Cowley is, tacitly at least, 
confessed to have miscarried. There are not 
many examples of so great a work, produced by 
an author generally read, and generally praised, 
that has crept through a century with so little 
regard. "Whatever is said of Cowley, is meant 
of his other works. Of the Davideis, no men- 
tion is made; it never appears in books, nor 
emerges in conversation. By the Spectator it 
has been once quoted; by Rymer it has once 
been praised; and by Dryden, in " Mack Fleck- 
noe," it has once been imitated ; nor do I recol- 
lect much other notice from its publication till 
now in the whole succession of English litera- 
ture. 

Of this silence and neglect, if the reason be 
inquired, it will be found partly in the choice of 
the subject, and partly in the performance of the 
work. 

Sacred History has been always read with 
submissive reverence, and an imagination over- 
awed and controlled. "We have been accus- 
tomed to acquiesce in the nakedness and sim- 
plicity of the authentic narrative, and to repose 
on its veracity with such humble confidence as 
suppresses curiosity. We go with the historian 
as he goes, and stop with him when he stops. 
All amplification is frivolous and vain : all ad- 
dition to that which is already sufficient for the 
purposes of religion, seems not only useless but 
in some degree profane. 

Such e^ints as were produced by the visible 
interposition of Divine power are above the pow- 



er of human genius to dignify. The miracle 
of creation, however it may teem with images, 
is best described with little diffusion of language ; 
" He spake the word, and they were made." 

We are told that Saul was troubled with an 
evil spirit ; from this, Cowley takes an oportu- 
nity of describing hell, and telling the history of 
Lucifer, who was, he says, 

Once general of a gilded host of sprites, 

Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights; 

But down like lightning, which him struck, he 

came, 
And roar'd at his first plunge into the flame. 

Lucifer makes a speech to the inferior agents 
of mischief, in which there is something of heath- 
enism, and therefore of impropriety; and, to 
give efficacy to his words, concludes by lashing 
his breast with his long tail. Envy, after a 
pause, steps out, and among other declarations 
of her zeal utters these lines. 

Do thou but threat^ loud storms sh ill make reply, 
And thunder echo to the trembling sky : 
Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height, 
As shall the fire's proud element afright. 
Th' old drudging sun, from his long beaten way 
Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day. 
The jocund orbs shall break their measured pace, 
And stubborn poles change their allotted place. 
Heaven's gilded troops shall flutter here and there, 
Leaving their boasting songs tuned to a sphere. 

Every reader feels himself weary with this 
useless talk of an allegorical being. 

It is not only when the events are confessed- 
ly miraculous, that fancy and fiction lose their 
effect ; the whole system of life, while the theo- 
cracy was yet visible, has an appearance so di- 
fferent from all other scenes of human action, 
that the reader of the Sacred Volume habitually 
considers it as the peculiar mode of existence of 
a distinct species of mankind, that lived and ac- 
ted with manners uncommunicable ; so that it *„ 
difficult even for imagination to place us in the 
state of them whose story is related, and by 
consequence their joys and griefs are not easily 
adopted, nor can the attention be often interest- 
ed in any thing that befalls them. 

To the subject thus originally indisposed to 
the reception of poetical embellishments, the 
writer brought little that could reconcile impa- 
tience, or attract curiosity. Nothing can be 
more disgusting than a narrative spangled with 
conceits ; and conceits are all that the Davideis 
supplies. 

One of the great sources of poetical delight is 
description,* or the power of presenting pictures 

* Dr. Warton discovers some contrariety of opin- 
ion between this and what is said of description in 
p. 14.— C. 



COWLEY. 



17 



to the mind. Cowley gives inferences instead of 
images, and shows not what may be supposed to 
have been seen, but what thoughts the sight 
might have suggested. When Virgil describes 
the stone which Tuxnus lifted against iEneas, 
he fixes the attention on its bulk and weight : 

Saxum circumspicit in gens, 
Saxum antiquum, in gens, carnpo quod forte jacebat 
Mines agio positus, litem ut discerneret arvis. 

Cowley says of the stone with which Cain 
slew his brother, 

I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant 
At once his murther and his monument. 

Of the sword taken from Goliah, he says, 

A sword so great, that it was only fit 

To cut off his great head that came with it. 

Other poets describe death by some of its com- 
mon appearances. Cowley says, with a learned 
allusion to sepulchral lamps, real or fabulous, 

'Twixt his right ribs deep pierc'd the furious blade, 
And open'd wide those secret Vessels where 
Life's light goes out, when first they let in air. 

But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned. 
In a visionary succession of kings, 

Joas at first does bright and glorious show, 
In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow. 

Describing an undisciplined army, after hav- 
ing said with elegance, 

His forces seem'd no army, but a crowd 
Heartless, unarm'd, disorderly, and loud- 
he gives them a fit of the ague. 

The allusions, however, are not always to 
vulgar things; he offends by exaggeration as 
much as by diminution ; 

The king was plac'd alone, and o'er his head 

A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread. 

Whatever he writes is always polluted with 
some conceit : 

Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth, 
Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, 
Gold, which alone more influence has than he. 

In one passage he starts a sudden question to 
the confusion of philosophy : 

Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace, 
Why does that twining plant the oak embrace : 
The oak for courtship most of all unfit, 
And rough as are the winds that fight with it 1 

His expressions have sometimes a degree of 
meanness that surpasses expectation : 

Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you're in, 
The story of your gallant friend begin. 



In a simile descriptive of the Morning : 

As glimmering stars just at th' approach of day, 
Cashier'd by troops, at last all drop away. 

The dress of Gabriel deserves attention : 

He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, 
That e'er the mid-day sun pierc'd through with 

light ; 
Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, 
Wash'd from the morning beauties' deepest red t 
An harmless flatt'ring meteor shone for hair, 
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care ; 
He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, 
Where the most sprightly azure pleas'd the eyes 
This he with starry Vapours sprinkles all, 
Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall ; 
Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade, 
The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made. 

This is a just specimen of Cowley's imagery : 
what might in general expressions oe great and 
forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by 
branching it into small parts. That Gabri 1 
was invested with the softest or brightest colours 
of the sky, we might have been told, and been 
dismissed to improve the idea in our different 
proportions of conception ; but Cowley could 
not let us go till he had related where Gabriel 
got first his skin, and then his mantle, then his 
lace, and then his scarf, and related it in the 
terms of the mercer and tailor. 

Sometimes he indulges himself in a digression, 
always conceived with his natural exuberance, 
and commonly, even where it is not long, con- 
tinued till it is tedious : 

I' th' library a few choice authors stood, 

Yet 'twas well stor'd, for that small store was good : 

Wri'ing, man's spiritual physic, was hot then 

Itself, as now, grown a disease of men. 

Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew; 

The common prostitute she lately grew, 

And with the spurious brood loads now the press ; 

Laborious effects of idleness. 

As the Davideis affords only four books, 
though intended to consist of twelve, there is no 
opportunity for such criticism as epic poems com- 
monly supply. The plan of the whole work is 
very imperfectly shown by the third part. The 
duration of an unfinished action cannot be 
known. Of characters either not yet introduced, 
or shown but upon few occasions, the full ex- 
tent and the nice discriminations cannot be as- 
certained. The fable is plainly implex, formed 
rather from the Odyssey than the Iliad : and 
many artifices of diversification are employed, 
with the skill of a man acquainted with the best 
models. The past is recalled by narration, and 
the future anticipated by vision : but he has 
been so lavish of his poetical art, that it is dim- 
cult to imagine how he could fill eight books 
more without practising again the same modes 
of disposing his matter : and perhaps the per- 
ception of this growing incumbrance inclined 



18 



COWLEY. 



him to stop. By this abruption, posterity lost 
more instruction than delight. If the continu- 
ation of the Davideis can be missed, it is for the 
learning that had been diffused over it, and the 
notes in which it had been explained. 

Had not his characters been depraved like 
every other part by improper decorations, they 
would have deserved uncommon praise. He 
gives Saul both the body and mind of a hero : 

His way once chose, he forward thrust outright, 
Nor turn'd aside for danger or delight. 

And the different beauties of the ldfty Merah 
and the gentle Michol are very justly conceived 
and strongly painted. 

Rymer has declared the Davideis superior to 
the Jerusalem of Tasso, " which," says he, " the 
poet, with all his care, has not totally purged 
from pedantry." If by pedantry is meant that 
minute knowledge which is derived from parti- 
cular sciences and studies, in opposition to the 
general notions supplied by a wide survey of life 
and nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing 
pedantry far more frequently than Tasso. I know 
not, indeed, why they should be compared ; for the 
resemblance of Cowley's work to Tasso's is only 
that they both exhibit the agency of celestial and 
infernal spirits, in which however they differ 
widely ; for Cowley supposes them commonly 
to operate upon the mind by suggestion ; Tasso 
represents them as promoting or obstructing 
events by external agency. 

Ot particular passages that can be properly 
compared, I remember only the description of 
heaven, in which the different manner of the 
two writers is sufficiently discernible. Cow- 
ley's is scarcely description, unless it be possible 
to describe by negatives : for he tells us only 
what there is not in heaven. Tasso endeavours 
to represent the splendours and pleasures of the 
regions of happiness. Tasso affords images, and 
Cowley sentiments. It happens, however, that 
Tasso's description affords some reason for Ry- 
mer's censure. He says of the Supreme Being, 

Hk sotto i piedi fato e la natura 
Ministri humili, e'l moto, e ch'il misura. 

The second line has in it more of pedantry 
than perhaps can be found in any other stanza 
of the poem. 

In the perusal of the Davideis, as of all Cow- 
ley's works, we find wit and learning unprofit- 
ably squandered. Attention has no relief; the 
affections are never moved ; we are sometimes 
surprised, but never delighted, and find much to 
admire, but little to approve. Still however it 
is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by 
nature, and replenished by study. 

In the general review of Cowley's poetry, it 
will be found that he wrote with abundant fer- 
tility, but negligent or unskilful selection ; with 



much thought, but with little imagery ; that he 
is never pathetic, and rarely sublime ; but al- 
ways either ingenious or learned, either acute or 
profound. 

It is said by Denham in his elegy, 

To h?m no author was unknown, 
Yet what he writ was all his own. 

This wide position requires less limitation, when 
it is affirmed of Cowley, than perhaps of any 
other poet. — He read much, and yet borroAved 
little. 

His character of writing was indeed not his 
own: he unhappily adopted that which was 
predominant. He saw a certain way to present 
praise ; and, not sufficiently inquiring by what 
means the ancients have continued to delight 
through all the changes of human manners, he 
contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of 
which the verdure in its spring was bright and 
gay, but which time has been continually steal- 
ing from his brows. 

He was in his own time considered as of un- 
rivalled excellence. Clarendon represents him 
as having taken a flight beyond all that went 
before him ; and Milton is said to have declared, 
that the three greatest English poets were Spen- 
ser, Shakspeare, and Cowley. 

His manner he had in common with others ; 
but his sentiments were his own. Upon every 
subject he thought for himself; and such was 
his copiousness of knowledge, that something at 
once remote and applicable rushed into his 
mind ; yet it is not likely that he always reject- 
ed a commodious idea merely because another 
had used it : his known wealth was so great 
that he might have borrowed without loss of 
credit. 

In his elegy on Sir Henry Wotton, the last 
lines have such resemblance to the noble epigram 
of Grotius on the death of Scaliger, that I can- 
not but think them copied from it, though they 
are copied by no servile hand. 

One passage in his Mistress is so apparently 
borrowed from Donne, that he probably would 
not have written it, had it not mingled with his 
own thoughts, so as that he did not perceive 
himself taking it from another : 

Although I think thou never found wilt be 
Yet I'm resolv'd to search for thee ; 
The search itself rewards the pains. 

So, though the chymic his great secret miss 
(For neither it in art or nature is,) 
Yet things well worth his toil he gains : 
And does his charge and labour pay 

With good unsought experiments by the way. 

Cowley. 

Some that have deeper digg'd Love's mine, than I, 
Say, where his centric happiness doth he : 

I have lov'd, and got, and told ; 
But should I lore, get, tell, till I wore old, 



COWLEY. 



19 



1 should not find that hidden mystery ; 

Oh, 'tis imposture all ! 
And as no chymic yet th' elixir got, 

But glorifies his pregnant pot, 

If by the way to him bet'al 
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal, 

So lovers dream a rich and long delight, 

But get a winter-seeming summer's night. 

Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, 
were then in the highest esteem. 

It is related by Clarendon that Cowley always 
acknowledges his obligation to the learning and 
industry of Jonson ; but I have found no traces 
of Jonson in his works : to emulate Donne ap- 
pears to have been his purpose ; and from Donne 
he may have learned that familiarity with reli- 
gious images, and that light allusion to sacred 
things, by which readers far short of sanctity 
are frequently offended ; and which would not 
be borne in the present age, when devotion, per- 
haps not more fervent, is more delicate. 

Having produced one passage taken by Cow- 
ley from Donne, I will recompense him by an- 
other which Milton seems to have borrowed 
from him. He says of Goliah, 

His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree, 

Which nature meant some tall ship's mast should be. 

Milton of Satan : 

His spear, to equal which the tallest pine 
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 
Of some great admiral, were but a wand, 
He walked with. 

His diction was in his own time censured as 
negligent. He seems not to have known, or not 
to have considered, that words being arbitrary 
must owe their power to association, and have 
the influence, and that only, which custom has 
given them. Language is the dress of thought : 
and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, 
would be degraded and obscured by a garb ap- 
propriated to the gross employments of rustics 
or mechanics; so the most heroic sentiments 
will lose their efficacy, and the most splendid 
ideas drop their magnificence, if they are con- 
veyed by words used commonly upon low and 
trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, and 
contaminated by inelegant applications. 

Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is 
always reason ; they have an intrinsic and unal- 
terable value, and constitute that intellectual 
gold which defies destruction ; but gold may be 
so concealed in baser matter, that only a chymist 
can recover it ; sense may be so hidden in unre- 
fined and plebeian words, that none but philoso- 
phers can distinguish it ; and both may be so 
buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost of 
their extraction. 

The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, 
first presents itself to the intellectual eye: and 



if the first appearance offends, a further know- 
lege is not often sought. Whatever professes to 
benefit by pleasing, must please at once. The 
pleasures of the mind imply something sudden 
and unexpected ; that which elevates must al- 
ways surprise. What is perceived by slow de- 
grees may gratify us with consciousness of im- 
provement, but will never strike with the sense 
of pleasure. 

Of all this Cowley appears to have been 
without knowledge, or without care. He 
makes no selection of words, nor seeks any 
neatness of phrase : he has no elegances, 
either lucky or elaborate : as his endeavours 
were rather to impress sentences upon the un- 
derstanding than images on the fancy ; he has 
few epithets, and those scattered without pecu- 
liar propriety of nice adaptation. It seems to 
follow from the necessity of the subject, rather 
than the care of the writer, that the diction of 
his heroic poem is less familiar than that of his 
slightest writings. He has given not the same 
numbers, but the same diction, to the gentle 
Anacreon and the tempestuous Pindar. 

His versification seems to have had very little 
of his care ; and if what he thinks be true, that 
his numbers are unmusical only when they are 
ill-read, the art of reading them is at present 
lost ; for they are commonly harsh to modern 
ears. He has indeed many noble lines, such as 
the feeble care of Waller never could produce. 
The bulk of his thoughts sometimes swelled his 
verse to unexpected and inevitable grandeur; 
but his excellence of this kind is merely fortui- 
tous : he sinks willingly down to his general 
carelessness, and avoids with very little care 
either meanness or asperity. 

HLs contractions are often rugged and harsh : 

One flings a mountain, and its rivers too 
Torn up with't. 

His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, 
or particles, or the like unimportant words, 
which disappoint the ear, and destroy the 
energy of the line. 

His combination of different measures is 
sometimes dissonant and unpleasing ; he joins 
verses together, of which the former does not 
slide easily into the latter. 

The words do and did, which so much degrade 
in present estimation the line that admits them, 
were, in the time of Cowley, little censured or 
avoided: how often he used them, and with 
how bad an effect, at least to our ears, will ap- 
pear by a passage in which every reader will 
lament to see just and noble thoughts defrauded 
of their x>raise by inelegance of language : 

Where honour or where consience does not bind, 

No other law shall shackle me ; 

Slave to myself I ne'er will be ; 
Nor shall my future actions be confin'd 

By my own present mind. 



20 



COWLEY. 



Who by resolves and vows engaged does stand, 

For days that yet belong to fate, 
Does, lite an unthrift, mortgage his estate 

Before it falls into his hand ; 

The bondman of the cloister so, 
All that he does receive does always owe. 
And still as time comes in, it goes away, 

Not to enjoy but debts to pay ! 

Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell ! 
Which his hour's work as well as hours does tell : 
Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell. 

His heroic lines are often formed of mono- 
syllables ; but yet they are sometimes sweet and 
sonorous. 

He says of the Messiah, 

Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall 

sound, 
And reach to worlds that must not yet bo found. 

In another place, of David, 

Yet bid him go securely when he sends ; 
'Tis Saul that is his foe, and we his friends. 
The man who has his God, no aid can lack ; 
And we who bid him go, will bring him back. 

Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes at- 
tempted an improved and scientific versifica- 
tion; of which it will be best to give his own 
account subjoined to this line : 
Nor can the glory contain itself in the endless space. 

" I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the 
most part of readers, that it is not by negligence 
that this verse is so loose, long, and as it were, 
vast ; it is to paint in the number the nature of 
the thing which it describes, which I would 
have observed in divers other places of this 
poem, that else will pass for very careless verses : 
as before, 

' And over-runs the neighbouring fields with violent 
course.' 

" In the second book ; 

' Down a precipice deep, down he casts them all, — ' 

« And, 

* And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.' 

" In the third, 
' Brass was his helmet, his boots brass, and o'er 
His breast a thick plate of strong brass he wore.' 

" In the fourth, 

* Like some fair Pine o'er-looking all the ignobler 

wood.' 

" And, 

' Some from the rocks cast themselves down head- 
long.' 

" And many more : but it is enough to instance 
in a few. The thing is, that the disposition of 
words and numbers should be such, as that, out 
of the order and sound of them, the things them- 
selves may be represented. This the Greeks 
were not so accurate as to bind themselves to : 



neither have our English poets observed it, for 
aught I can find. The Latins (qui Musas colunt 
sevenores) sometimes did it ; and their prince, 
Virgil, always : in whom the examples are in- 
numerable, and taken notice of by all judicious 
men, so that it is superfluous to collect them." 

I know not whether he has, in many of thesi 
instances, attained the representation or resem- 
blance that he purposes. Verse can imitate only 
sound and motion. A boundless verse, a head- 
long verse, and a verse of brass or of strong brass, 
seem to comprise very incongruous and unsoci- 
able ideas. What there is peculiar in the sound 
of the line expressing loose care, I cannot dis- 
cover ; nor why the pine is taller in an Alexan- 
drine than in ten syllables. 

But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he 
has given one example of representative versifi 
cation, which perhaps no other English line can 
equal : 

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise : 

He, who defers this work from day to day, 

Does on a river's bank expecting stay 

Till the whole stream that stopp'd him shall be gone, 

Which runs, and as it runs, for ever shall run on. 

Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that 
mingled Alexandrines at pleasure with the com- 
mon heroic of ten syllables ; and from him Dry- 
den borrowed the practice, whether ornamental 
or licentious. He considered the verse of twelve 
syllables as elevated and majestic, and has there- 
fore deviated into that measure when he sup- 
poses the voice heard of the Supreme Being. 

The author of the Davideis is commended by 
Dryden for having written it in couplets, be- 
cause he discovered that any staff was too lyrical 
for an heroic poem ; but this seems to have been 
known before by May and Sandys, the translators 
of the Pharsalia and the Metamorphoses. 

In the Davideis are some hemistichs, or verses 
left imperfect by the author, in imitation of Vir- 
gil, whom he supposes not to have intended to 
complete them ; that this opinion is erroneous, 
may be probably concluded, because his trunca- 
tion is imitated by no subsequent Roman poet : 
because Virgil himself filled up one broken line 
in the heat pf recitation; because in one the 
sense is now unfinished ; and because all that 
can be done by a broken verse, a line intersected 
by a ccesura, and a full stop, will equally effect. 

Of triplets in his Davideis he makes no use, 
and perhaps did not at first think them allow- 
able ; but he appears afterwards to have changed 
his mind, for, in the verses on the government 
of Cromwell, he inserts them liberally with 
great happiness. 

After so much criticism on bis Poems, the 
Essays which accompany them must not be for- 
gotten. What is said by Sprat of his conversa- 
tion, that no man could draw from it any sus- 
picion of his excellence in poetry, may be applied 



DENHAM. 



21 



to these compositions. No author ever kept his 
verse and his prose at a greater distance from 
each other. His thoughts are natural, and his 
style has a smooth and placid equability, ■which 
has never yet obtained its due commendation. 
Nothing is far sought, or hard-laboured; but 
all is easy without feebleness, and familiar with- 
out grossness. 

It has been observed by Felton, in his Essay 
on the Classics, that Cowley was beloved by 
every muse that he courted ; and that he has 
rivalled the ancients in every kind of poetry but 
tragedy. 

It may be affirmed, without any encomiastic 



fervour, that he brought to his poetic labours a 
mind replete with learning, and that his pages 
are embellished with all the ornaments which 
books could supply ; that he was the first who 
imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of 
the greater ode, and the gayety of the less ; that 
he was equally qualified for sprightly sallies, and 
for lofty flights ; that he was among those who 
freed translation from servility, and instead of 
following his author at a distance, walked by 
his side ; and that if he left versification yet im- 
provable, he left likewise from time to time 
such specimens of excellence as enabled succeed- 
ing poets to improve it. 



DENHAM. 



Of Sir John Denham very little is known but 
what is related of him by Wood, or by himself. 

He was born at Dublin in 1615 ;* the only son 
of Sir John Denham, of Little Horseley, in 
Essex, then chief baron of the Exchequer in Ire- 
land, and of Eleanor, daugb* - of Sir Garret 
More, baron of Mellefont. 

Two years afterwards, his father, being made 
one of the barons of the Exchequer in England, 
brought him away from his native country, and 
educated him in London. 

In 1631 he was sent to Oxford, where he was 
considered "as a dreaming young man, given 
more to dice and cards than study :" and there- 
fore gave no prognostics of his future eminence ; 
nor was suspected to conceal, under sluggishness 
and laxity, a genius born to improve the litera- 
ture-of his country. 

When he was, three years afterwards, re- 
moved to Lincoln's Inn, he prosecuted the com- 
mon law with sufficient appearance of applica- 
tion; yet did not lose his propensity to cards and 
dice ; but was very often plundered by game- 
sters. 

Being severely reproved for this folly, he pro- 



* la Hamilton's Memoirs of Count Grammon t, Sir 
John Denham is said to have been 79 when he mar- 
ried Miss Brook, about the year 1664: according to 
•which statement he was born in 1585. But Dr. 
Johnson, who has followed Wood, is right. He en- 
tered Trinity College, Oxford, at the age of 16, in 
1631, as appears by the following entry, which I 
copied from the matriculation book : 

Trin. Coll. " 1631. Nov. 18. Johannes Denham, 
Essex, Alius J. Denham, de Horsley parva in 
com. prasdict. militis annos natus 16." — Malone. 



fessed, and perhaps believed, himself reclaimed ; 
and, to testify the sincerity of his repentance, 
wrote and published " An Essay upon Gam- 
ing." 

He seems to have divided his studies between 
law and poetry : for, in 1636, he translated the 
second book of the JEneid. 

Two years after, his father died ; and then, 
notwithstanding his resolutions and professions, 
he returned again to the vice of gaming, and lost 
several thousand pounds that had been left him. 

In 1642, he published « The Sophy." This 
seems to have given him his first hold of the 
public attention ; for Waller remarked, " That 
he broke out like the Irish rebellion, threescore 
thousand strong, when nobody was aware, or in 
the least suspected it; an observation which 
could have had no propriety, had his poetical 
abilities been known before. 

He was after that pricked for sheriff of Surry, 
and made governor of Farnham Castle for the 
King ; but he soon resigned that charge, and re- 
treated to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published 
" Cooper's Hill." 

This poem had such reputation as to excite 
the common artifice by which envy degrades ex- 
cellence. — A report was spread, that the per- 
formance was not his own, but that he had 
bought it of a vicar for forty pounds. The same 
attempt was made to rob Addison of Cato, and 
Pope of his Essay on Criticism. 

In 1647, the distresses of the royal family re- 
quired him to engage in more dangerous em- 
ployments. He was entrusted by the Queen 
with a message to the King ; and, by whatever 
means, so far softened the ferocity of Hugh 
Peters, that by his intercession admission was 
D 



22 



D EN H A M. 



procured. Of the King's condescension he 
has given an account in the dedication of his 
works. 

He was afterwards employed in carrying on 
the King's correspondence; and, as he says, 
discharged this office with great safety to the 
royalists : and, being accidentally discovered 
by the adverse party's knowledge of Mr. Cow- 
iey's hand, he escaped happily both for himself 
and his friends. 

He was yet engaged in a greater undertaking. 
In April, 1648, he conveyed James the duke of 
York from London into France, and delivered 
him there to the queen and prince of Wales. 
This year he published his translation of " Cato 
Major." 

He now resided in France as one of the fol- 
lowers of the exiled king; and to divert the 
melancholy of their condition, was sometimes 
enjoined by his master to write occasional ver- 
ses ; one of which amusements was probably his 
ode or song upon the Embassy to Poland, by 
which he and Lord Crofts procured a contribu- 
tion of ten thousand pounds from the Scotch 
that wandered over that kingdom. Poland was 
at that time very much frequented by itinerant 
traders, who, in a country of very little com- 
merce and of great extent, where every man 
resided on his own estate, contributed very 
much to the accommodation of life, by bringing 
to every man's house those little necessaries 
which it was very inconvenient to want, and 
very troublesome to fetch. I have formerly 
read, without much reflection, of the multitude 
of Scotchmen that travelled with their wares in 
Poland ; and that their numbers were not small, 
the success of this negotiation gives sufficient 
evidence. 

About this time, what estate the war and the 
gamesters had left him, was sold, by order of the 
parliament ; and when, in 1652, he returned to 
England, he was entertained by the earl of Pem- 
broke. 

Of the next years of his life there is no ac- 
count. At the restoration he obtained that 
which many missed— the reward of his loyalty ; 
being made surveyor of the king's buildings, and 
dignified with the order of the Bath. He seems 
now to have learned some attention to money ; 
for Wood says, that he got by this place seven 
thousand pounds. 

After the restoration, he wrote the poem on 
Prudence and Justice, and perhaps some of his 
other pieces : and, as he appears, whenever any 
fcrious question comes before him, to have been 
aman of piety, he consecrated his poetical powers 
to religion, and, made a metrical version of the 
Psalms of David. In this attempt he has failed ; 
but in sacred poetry who has succeeded ? 

It might be hoped that the favour of his mas- 
ter, and esteem of the public, would now make 
him happy. But human felicity is short and 



uncertain ; a second marriage brought upon him 
so much disquiet, as for a time disordered his 
understanding ; and Butler lampooned him for 
his lunacy. I know not whether the malignant 
lines were then made public, nor what provoca- 
tion incited Butler to do that which no provo- 
cation can excuse. 

His frenzy lasted not long;* and he seems 
to have regained his full force of mind ; for he 
wrote afterwards his excellent poem upon the 
death of Cowley, whom he was not long to sur- 
vive ; for on the 19th of March, 1668, he was 
buried by his side. 

Denham is deservedly considered as one of the 
fathers of English poetry. " Denham and 
Waller," says Prior, "improved our versifica- 
tion, and Dryden perfected it." He has given 
specimens of various composition, descriptive, 
ludicrous, didactic, and sublime. 

He appears to have had, in common with al- 
most all mankind, the ambition of being upon 
proper occasion " a merry fellow," and in com- 
mon with most of them to have been by nature, 
or by early habits, debarred from it. Nothing 
is less exhilarating than the ludicrousness of 
Denham ; he does not fail for want of efforts : 
he is familiar, he is gross ; but he is never merry, 
unless the " Speech against Peace in the close 
Committee" be excepted. For grave burlesque, 
however, his imitation of Davenant shows him 
to be well qualified. 

Of his more elevated occasional poems, there 
is perhaps none t^t does not deserve commen- 
dation. In the ve^es to Fletcher, we have an 
image that has since been often adopted :f 

But whither am I stray 'd ? I need Dot raise 

Trophies to thee, from other men's dispraise ; 

Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built, 

Nor need thy juster title the foul guilt 

Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, 

Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain. 

After Denham, Orrery, in one of his prologues, 

Poets are sultans, if they had their will ; 
For every author would his brother kill. 

And Pope, 

Should such a man too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. 

But this is not the best of his little pieces : it is 
excelled by his poem to Fanshaw, and his Elegy 
on Cowley. 



* In Grammont's Memoirs, many circumstances 
are related, both of his marriage and his frenzy, 
very little favourable to hi; character. — R. 

f It is remarkable that Johnson should not have 
recollected, that this image i.« to be found in Bacon. 
Aristoteles more othomannoram, regna : re se hand 
tuto posse putabat, nisi fratres suos, omnes contra 
udasset. — De augment, scient. lib. iii. 



D E N H A M. 



23 



His praise of Fanshaw's version of Guarini 
contains a very sprightly and judicious character 
of a good translator : 

That servile path thou nobly dost decline, 
Of tracing word by word and !iae by line. 
Those are the laboured birth of slavish brains, 
Not the effect of poetry, but pains ; 
Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords 
No flight for thoughts, but poorly stick at words. 
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue, 
To make translations and translators too. 
They but preserve the ashes ; thou the flame, 
True to his sense, but truer to his fame. 

The excellence of these lines is greater, as the 
truth which they contain was not at that time 
generally known. 

His poem on the death of Cowley was his last, 
and, among his shorter works, his best perform- 
ance : the numbers are musical, and the thoughts 
are just. 

" Cooper's Hill" is the work that confers upon 
him the rank and dignity of an original author. 
He seems to have been, at least among us, the 
author of a species of composition that may be 
denominated local poetry, of which the funda- 
mental subject is some particular landscape, to 
be poetically described, with the addition of such 
embellishments as may be supplied by historical 
retrospection or incidental meditation. 

To trace a new scheme of poetry, has in it- 
self a very high claim to praise, and its praise is 
yet more when it is apparently copied by Garth 
and Pope ;* after whose names little will be 
gained by an enumeration of smaller poets, that 
have left scarcely a corner of the island not dig- 
nified either by rhyme or blank verse. 

" Cooper's Hill," if it be maliciously inspec- 
ted, will not be found without its faults. The 
digressions are too long, the morality too fre- 
quent, and the sentiments sometimes such as 
will not bear a rigorous inquiry. 

The four verses, which, since Dryden has 
commended them, almost every writer for a 
century past has imitated, are generally known : 

O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream 
My great example, as it is my theme ! 
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; 
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full. 

The lines are in themselves not perfect : for 
most of the words, thus artfully opposed, are to 
be understood simply on one side of the compa- 
rison, and metaphorically on the other ; and if 
there be any language that does not express in- 
tellectual operations by material images into 
that language they cannot be translated. But 
6o much meaning is comprised in so few words ; 
the particulars of resemblances are so perspica- 



* By Garth, in his " Poem on Claremont ;" and 
by Pope* in his " Windsor Forest." 



ciously collected, and every mode of excellence 
separated from its adjacent fault by so nice a 
line of limitation ; the different parts of the sen- 
tence are so accurately adjusted; and the flow 
of the last couplet is so smooth and sweet ; that 
the passage, however celebrated, has not been 
praised above its merit. It has beauty peculiar 
to itself, and must be numbered among those fe- 
licities which cannot be produced at will by wit 
and labour, but must arise unexpectedly in some 
hour, propitious to poetry. 

He appears to have been one of the first that 
understood the necessity of emancipating trans- 
lation from the drudgery of counting lines and 
interpreting single words. How much this ser- 
vile practice obscured the clearest and deformed 
the most beautiful parts of the ancient authors, 
may be discovered by a perusal of our earlier 
versions ; some of them are the works of men 
well qualified, not only by critical knowledge, 
but by poetical genius, who yet, by a mistaken 
ambition of exactness, degraded at once their 
originals and themselves. 

Denham saw the better way, hut has not pur- 
sued it with great success. His versions of 
Virgil are not pleasing ; but they taught Dry- 
den to please better. His poetical imitation of 
Tully on " Old Age" has neither the clearness 
of prose, nor the sprightliness of poetry. 

The " strength of Denham," which Pope so 
emphatically mentions, is to be jfound in many 
lines and couplets, which convey much meaning 
in few words, and exhibit the sentiment with 
more weight than hulk. 

ON THE THAMES. 

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, 
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold; 
His genuine and less guilty wealth t'explore, 
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore. 

ON STRAFFORD. 

His wisdom such, at once it did appear 

Three kingdoms' wonder, and three kingdoms' fear 

While single he stood forth, and seem'd, although 

Each had an army, as an equal foe, 

Such was his force of eloquence, to make 

The hearers more concern'd than he that spake : 

Each seem'd to act that part he came to see, 

And none was more a looker-on than he ; 

So did he move our passions, some were known 

To wish, for the defence, the crime their own. 

Now private pity strove with public hate. 

Reason with rage, and eloquence with fate, 

ON COWLEY. 

To him no author was unknown, 

Yet what he wrote was all his own , 

Horace's wit, and Virgil's state, 

He did not steal, but emulate ! 

And when he would like them appear, 

Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear. 

As one of Denham's principal claims to the 
regard of posterity arises from his improve- 



24 



MILTON. 



ment of our numbers, his versification ought to 
be considered. It will afford that pleasure 
which arises from the observation of a man of 
judgment, naturally right, forsaking bad copies 
by degrees, and advancing towards a better prac- 
tice as he gains more confidence in himself. 

In his translation of Virgil, written when he 
was about twenty-one years old, may be still 
found the old manner of continuing the sense 
ungracefully from verse to verse ; 

Then all those 

Who in the dark our fury did escape, 
Returning, know our borrow'd arms, and shape, 
And differing dialect ; then their numbers swell 
And grow upon us ; first Choroebeus fell 
Before Minerva's altar : next did bleed ~% 

Just Ripheus, whom no Trojan did exceed > 
In virtue, yet the gods his fate decreed. 3 
Then Hypanis and Dymas, wounded by 
Their friends ; nor thee, Pantheus, thy piety, 
Nor consecrated mitre, from the same 
HI fate could save, my country's funeral flame 
And Troy's cold ashes I attest, and call 
To witness for myself, that in their fall 
No foes, no death, nor danger, I declin'd, 
Did, and deserved no less, my fate to find. 

From this kind of concatenated metre he 
afterwards refrained, and taught his followers 
the art of concluding their sense in couplets ; 
which has perhaps been with rather too much 
constancy pursued. 

This passage exhibits one of those triplets 
which are not unfrequent in this first essay, but 
which it is to be supposed his maturer judgment 
disapproved, since in his latter works he has 
totally forborn them. 

His rhymes are such as seem found with- 



out difficulty, by following the sense; and are 
for the most part as exact at least as those of 
other poets, though now and then the reader is 
shifted off with what he can get : 

O how trans/orm'd ! 
How much unlike that Hector, who reticrn'd 
Clad in Achilles' spoils ! 

And again : 

From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung 
Like petty princes from the fall of Rome. 

Sometimes the weight of rhyme is laid upon 
a word too feeble to sustain it. 

Troy confounded falls 



From all hei- glories : if it might have stood 

By any power, by this right hand it shou'd. 

— And though my outward state misfortune hath 

Deprest thus low, it cannot reach my faith. 

— Thus, by his fraud and our own faith o'ercome, 

A feigned tear destroys us, against whom 

Tydides nnr Achilles could prevail, 

Nor ten years conflict, nor a thousand sail." 

He is not very careful to vary the ends of his 
verses ; in one passage the word die rhymes 
three couplets in six. 

Most of these petty faults are in his first pro- 
ductions, where he was less skilful, or at least 
less dexterous in the use of words ; and though 
they had been more frequent, they could only 
have lessened the grace, not the strength, of his 
composition. He is one of the writers that im- 
proved our taste, and advanced our language ; 
and whom we ought therefore to read with gra- 
titude, though, having done much, he left much 
to do. 



MILTON. 



The life of Milton has been already written in 
so many forms, and with such minute inquiry, 
that I might perhaps more properly have con- 
tented myself with the addition of a few notes 
on Mr. Fenton's elegant Abridgment, but that 
a new narrative was thought necessary to the 
uniformity of this addition. 

John Milton was by birth a gentleman, de- 
scended from the proprietors of Milton, near 
Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited 
his estate in the times of York and Lancaster. 
Which side he took 1 know not ; his descendant 
Inherited no veneration for the White Rose. 



His grandfather, John, was keeper of the for- 
est of Shotover, a zealous papist, who disin- 
herited his son because he had forsaken the re- 
ligion of his ancestors. 

His father, John, who was the son disinhe- 
rited, had recourse for his support to the profes- 
sion of a scrivener. He was a man eminent for 
his skill in music, many of his compositions be- 
ing still to be found ; and his reputation in his 
profession was such, that he grew rich,*pnd re- 
tired to an estate. He had probably more than 
common literature, as his son addresses him in 
one of his most elaborate Latin poems. He 



MILTON. 



25 



married a gentlewoman of the name of Caston, 
a Welch family, by whom he had two sons, 
John, the poet, and Christopher, who studied 
the law, and adhered, as the law taught him, to 
the King's party, for which he was a while per- 
secuted ; but having, by his brother's interest, 
obtained permission to live in quiet, he support- 
ed himself so honourably by chamber-practice, 
that, soon after the accession of King James, he 
was knighted, and made a judge ; but, his con- 
stitution being too weak for business, he retired 
before any disreputable compliances became ne- 



He had likewise a daughter, Anne, whom he 
married with considerable fortune to Edward 
Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose 
in the Crown-office to be secondary : by him 
she had two sons, John and Edward, who were 
educated by the poet, and from whom is derived 
the only authentic account of his domestic man- 
ners. 

John, the poet, was born in his father's house, 
at the Spread Eagle, in Bread-street, Dec. 9, 
1608, between six and seven in the morning. 
His father appears to have been very solicitous 
about his education ; for he was instructed at 
first by private tuition, under the care of Tho- 
mas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to 
the English merchants at Hamburgh, and of 
whom we have reason to think ■well, since his 
scholar considered him as worthy of an episto- 
lary elegy. 

He was then sent to St. Paul's School, under 
the care of Mr, Gill ; and removed, in the be- 
ginning of his sixteenth year, to Christ's Col- 
lege, in Cambridge, where he entered a sizar,* 
Feb. 12, 1624. 

He was at this time eminently skilled in the 
Latin tongue ; and he himself, by annexing the 
dates to his first compositions, a boast of which 
the learned Politian had given him an example, 
seems to commend the earliness of his own pro- 
ficiency to the notice of posterity. But the 
products of his vernal fertility have been sur- 
passed by many, and particularly by his con- 
temporary Cowley. Of the powers of the 
mind it is difficult to form an estimate : many 
have excelled Milton in their first essays, who 
never rose to works like Paradise Lost. 

At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is six- 
teen, he translated or versified two Psalms, 114 
and 136, which he thought worthy of the public 



» In this assertion Dr. Johnson was mistaken. 
Milton was admitted a pensioner, and not a sizar, 
as will appear by the following extract from the 
College Register : " Johannes Milton Londinensis, 
filius Johannae, institutus fuit in literarum elementis 
sub Mag'ro Gill Gymnasii Paulini, pragfecto ; admis- 
sus est Pe?isionarhis Minor Feb. 12o, 1624, sub M'ro 
Ohappell, solritq. pro Ingr. 01. 10s. 0d."— R. , 



eye ; but they raise no great expectations ; they 
would in any numerous school have obtained 
praise, but not excited wonder. 

Many of his elegies appear to have been writ- 
ten in his eighteenth year, by which it appears 
that he had then read the Roman authors with 
very nice discernment. I once heard Mr. 
Hampton, the translator of Polybius, remark, 
what I think is true, that Milton was the first 
Englishman who, after the revival of letters, 
wrote Latin verses with classic elegance c If 
any exceptions can be made, they are very few : 
Haddon and Ascham, the pride of Elizabeth's 
reign, however they have succeeded in prose, no 
sooner attempt verse than they provoke deri- 
sion. If we produced any thing worthy of no- 
tice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps 
Alabaster's Roxana.* 

Of the exercises which the rules of the Uni- 
versity required, some were published by him 
in his maturer years. They had been undoubt- 
edly applauded, for they were such as few can 
perform ; yet there is reason to suspect that he 
was regarded in his college with no great fond- 
ness. That he obtained no fellowship is cer- 
tain ; but the unkindness with which he was 
treated was not merely negative. I am ashamed 
to relate, what I fear is true, that Milton was 
one of the last students in either University 
that suffered the public indignity of corporal 
correction. 

It was, in the violence of controversial hostil- 
ity, objected to him, that he was expelled : this 
he steadily denies, and it was apparently not 
true ; but it seems plain, from his own verses 
to Diodati, that he had incurred rustication, a 
temporary dismission into the country, with 
perhaps the loss of a term : 

Me tenet urbs reflua quam Thamesis alluit unda, 

Meque nee invitum patria dulcis habet. 
Jam nee arundiferum mini cur a revisere Camum, 

Nee dudum vetiti me laris angit amor. — 
Nee duri libet usque minas perferre magistri, 

Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo. 
Si sit hoc exilium patrios addiise penates, 

Et vacuum curis otia grata sequi, 
Non ego vel profugi uomen sortemve recuso 

Lastus et exilii conditione fruor. 

I cannot find any meaning but this, which 
even kindness and reverence can give the term 
vetiti laris, "a habitation from which he is exclud- 
ed;" or how exile can be otherwise interpreted. 
He declares yet. more, that he is weary of endur- 
ing the threats of a rigorous master, and some- 
thing else, which a temper like his cannot undergo. 
What was more than threat was probably pun- 
ishment. This poem, which mentions his exile, 
proves likewise that it was not perpetual ; for 
it concludes with a resolution of returning some 



* Published 1632.— R. 



26 



MILTON. 



time to Cambridge. And it maybe conjectured 
from the willingness with which he has perpet- 
uated the memory of his exile, that its cause 
was such as gave him no shame. 
* He took both the usual degrees; that of 
bachelor in 1628, and that of master in 1632 ; 
but he left the University with no kindness for 
its institution, alienated either by the injudicious 
severity of his governors, or his own captious 
perverseness. The cause cannot now be known 
but the effect appears in his writings. His 
scheme of education, inscribed to Hartlib, su- 
persedes all academical instruction, being in- 
tended to comprise the whole time which men 
usually spend in literature, from their entrance 
upon grammar, " till they proceed, as it is called, 
masters of arts." And in his discourse "on 
the likeliest way to remove hirelings out of the 
church," he ingeniously proposes, that "the 
profits of the lands forfeited by the act for su- 
perstitious uses should be applied to such acade- 
mies all over the land, where languages and arts 
may be taught together ; so that youth may be 
at once brought up to a competency of learning 
and an honest trade, by which means, such of 
them as had the gift, being enabled to support 
themselves (without tithes) by the latter, may, 
by the help of the former, become worthy 
preachers." 

One of his objections to academical education, 
as it was then conducted, is, that men designed 
for orders in the church were permitted to act 
plays, " writhing and unboning their clergy 
limbs to all the antic and dishonest gestures of 
Trincalos,* buffoons, and bawds, prostituting 
the shame of that ministry which they had, or 
were near having, to the eyes of the courtiers 
and court ladies, their grooms and mademoi- 
selles." 

This is sufficiently peevish in a man who, 
when he mentions his exile from the college, re- 
lates, with great luxuriance, the compensation 
which the pleasures of the theatre afford him. 
Plays were therefore only criminal when they 
were acted by academics. 

He went to the University with a design of 
entering into the church, but in time altered 
his mind; for he declared, that whoever became 
a clergyman must " subscribe slave, and take an 
oath withal, which, unless he took with a con- 
science that could not retch, he must straight 
perjure himself. He thought it better to prefer 
a blameless silence before the office of speaking, 



* By the mention of this name, he evidently re- 
fers to Albemazor, acted at Cambridge in 1614. Ig- 
noramus and other plays were performed at the 
same time. The practice was then very frequent. 
The last dramatic performance at either University 
was "The Grateful Fair," written by Christopher 
Smart, and represented at Pembroke College, Cam- 
bridge, about 1747.— R. 



bought and begun with servitude and forswear- 
ing." 

These expressions are, I find, applied, to the 
subscription of the Articles; but it seems 
more probable that they relate to canonical 
obedience. I know not any of the Articles 
which seem to thwart his opinions: but the 
thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or 
civil, raised his indignation. 

His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, 
perhaps not yet advanced to a settled resolution 
of declining it, appears in a letter to one of his 
friends, who had reproved his suspended and 
dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed 
to an insatiable curiosity, and fantastic luxury 
of various knowledge. To this he writes a cool 
and plausible answer, in which he endeavours 
to persuade him, that the delay proceeds not 
from the delights of desultory study, but from 
the desire of obtaining more fitness for his task ; 
and that he goes on, " not taking thought of 
being late, so it gives advantage to be more 
fit." 

When he left the University, he returned to 
his father, then residing at Horton, in Buck- 
inghamshire, with whom he lived five years, in 
which time he is said to have read all the Greek 
and Latin writers. With what limitations this 
universality is to be understood, who shall in- 
form us ? 

It might be supposed, that he who read so 
much should have done nothing else ; but Mil- 
ton found time to write the mask of " Comus," 
which was presented at Ludlow, then the re- 
sidence of the Lord President of Wales, in 
1634; and had the honour of being acted by the 
Earl of Bridgewater's sons and daughter. The 
fiction is derived from Homer's Circe ;• but 



* It has, nevertheless, its foundation in reality. 
The Earl of Bridgewater being President of Wales 
in the year 1634, had his residence at Ludlow Castle, 
in Shropshire, at which time Lord Brackly and Mr. 
Egerton, his sons, and Lady Alice Egerton, his 
daughter, passing through a place called the Hay- 
wood forest, or Haywood, in Herefordshire, were 
benighted, and the lady for a short time lost : this 
accident being related to their father, upon their 
arrival at his castle, Milton, at the request of his 
friend, Henry Lawes, who taught music in the fami- 
ly, wrote this mask. Lawes set it to music, and it 
was acted on Michaelmas night ; the two brothers, 
the young lady, and Lawes himself bearing each a 
part in the representation. 

The Lady Alice Egerton, became afterwards the 
wife of the Earl of Carbury, who, at his seat called 
Golden-grove, in Caermarthenshire, harboured Dr. 
Jeremy Taylor in the time of the usurpation. 
Among the Doctor's sermons is one on her death in 
which her character is finely portrayed. Her sister, 
Lady Mary, was given in marriage to Lord Herbert, 
of Cherbury. 

Notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's assertion, that 
the fiction i3 derived from Homer's Circe, it may be 



MILTON. 



V 



we never can. refuse to any modern the liberty 
of borrowing from Homer ; 

a quo ceu fonte perenni 

Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aqui3. 

His next production was " Lycidas," an 
elegy, written in 1637, on the death of Mr. 
King, the son of Sir John King, secretary for 
Ireland in the time of Elizabeth, James, and 
Charles. King was much a favourite at Cam- 
bridge, and many of the wits joined to do 
honour to his memory. Milton's acquaintance 
with the Italian writers may be discovered by 
a mixture of longer and shorter verses, accord- 
ing to the rules j)f Tuscan poetry, and his ma- 
lignity to the church, by some lines which are 
interpreted as threatening its extermination. 

He is supposed about this time to have writ- 
ten his " Arcades ; for, while he lived at Hor- 
ton, he used sometimes to steal from his studies 
a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the 
house of the Countess Dowager of Derby, 
where the " Arcades" made part of a dramatic 
entertainment. 

He began now to grow weary of the country, 
and had some purpose of taking chambers in 
the Inns of Court, when the death of his 
mother set him at liberty to travel, for which 
he obtained his father's consent, and Sir Henry 
Wotton's directions ; with the celebrated pre- 
cept of prudence, i vensieri stretti, ed il viso, sciol- 
to ; "thoughts close, and looks loose." 

In 1638 he left England, and went first to 
Paris ; where, by the favour of Lord Scuda- 
more, he had the opportunity of visiting Groti- 
us, then residing at the French court as ambas- 
sador from Christiana of Sweden. From Paris 
he hasted into Italy, of which he had with par- 
ticular diligence studied the language and litera- 
ture ; and though he seems to have intended a 
very quick perambulation of the country, stayed 
two months at Florence; where he found his 
way into the academies, and produced his com- 
positions with such applause as appears to have 
exalted him in his own opinion, and confirmed 
him in the hope, that, " by labour and intense 
study, which," says he, " I take to be my por- 
tion iu this life, joined with a strong propensity 
of nature," he might " leave something so writ- 
ten to aftertimes, as they should not willingly 
let it die." 



conjectured, that it was rather taken from the 
Comus of Erycius Puteanus, in which, under the 
fiction of a dream, the characters of Comus and his 
attendants are delineated, and the delights of sensu- 
alists exposed and reprobated. This little tract was 
published at Louvain in 1611, and afterwards at Ox- 
ford in 1634, the very year in which Milton's 
•' Comus" was written. — H. 

Milton evidently was indebted to the " Old Wives 
Tale" of George Peele for the plan of '« Comus."— R. 



It appears in all his writings that he had the 
usual concomitant of great abilities, a lofty and 
steady confidence in himself, perhaps not with- 
out some contempt of others ; for scarcely any 
man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. 
Of his praise he was very frugal ; as he set its 
value high, and considered his mention of a 
iiame as a security against the waste of time, 
and a certain preservative from oblivion. 

At Florence he could not, indeed, complain 
that his merit wanted distinction. Carlo Dati 
presented him with an encomiastic inscription, 
in the tumid lapidary style ; and Francini wrote 
him an ode, of which the first stanza is only 
empty noise ; the rest are perhaps too diffuse on 
common topics : but the last is natural and 
beautiful. 

From Florence he went to Sienna, and from 
Sienna to Rome, where he was again received 
with kindness by the learned and the great. 
Holstenius, the keeper of the Vatican Library, 
who had resided three years at Oxford, intro- 
duced him to Cardinal Barberini : and he, at a 
musical entertainment, waited for him at the 
door, and led him by the hand into the assem- 
bly. Here Selvaggi praised him in a distich, 
and Salsilli in a tetrastic; neither of them of 
much value. The Italians were gainers by this 
literary commerce ; for the encomiums with 
which Milton repaid Salsilli, though not secure 
against a stern grammarian, turn the balance 
indisputably in Milton's favour. 

Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, 
he was proud enough to publish them before his 
poems ; though he says, he cannot be suspected 
but to have known that they were said non tarn 
de se, quam supra se. 

At Rome, as at Florence, he stayed only two 
months ; a time indeed sufficient, if he desired 
only to ramble with an explainer of its an- 
tiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures ; 
but certainly too short for the contemplation of 
learning, policy, or manners. 

From Rome he passed on to Naples, in com- 
pany of a hermit, a companion from whom little 
could be expected ; yet to him Milton owed his 
introduction to Manso, Marquis of Villa, who 
had been before the patron of Tasso. Manso 
was enough delighted with his accomplishments 
to honour him with a sorry distich, in which he 
commends him for every thing but his religion : 
and Milton, in return, addressed him in a La- 
tin poem, which must have raised a high opin- 
ion of English elegance and literature. 

Flis purpose was now to have visited Sicily 
and Greece ; but, hearing of the differences be- 
tween the King and parliament, he thought it 
proper to hasten home, rather than pass his life 
in foreign amusements while his countrymen 
Avere contending for their rights. He therefore 
came back to Rome, though the merchants in- 
formed him of plots laid against him by tha 



28 



MILTON. 



Jesuits, for the liberty of his conversations on re- 
ligion. He had sense enough to judge that there 
was no danger, and therefore kept on his way, 
and acted as before, ueither obtruding nor shun- 
ning controversy. He had perhaps given some 
offence by visiting Galileo, then a prisoner in 
the Inquisition for philosophical heresy ; and at 
Naples he was told by Manso, that, by his declar- 
ations on religious questions, he had excluded 
himself from some distinctions which he should 
otherwise have paid him. But such conduct, 
though it did not please, was yet sufficiently 
safe ; and Milton stayed tAvo months more at 
Rome, and went on to Florence without moles- 
tation. 

From Florence he visited Lucca. He after- 
wards went to Venice ; and, having sent away 
a collection of music and other books, travelled 
to Geneva, which he probably considered as the 
metropolis of orthodoxy. 

Here he reposed as in a congenial element, and 
became acquainted with John Diodati and Fre- 
derick Spanheim, two learned professors of di- 
vinity. From Geneva, he passed through France ; 
and came home, after an absence of a year and 
three months. 

At his return he heard of the death of his 
friend Charles Diodati ; a man whom it is rea- 
sonable to suppose of great merit, since he was 
thought by Milton worthy of a poem, entitled 
" Epitaphium Damonis," written with the 
common but childish imitation of pastoral life. 

He now hired a lodging at the house of one 
Russel, a tailor in St. Bride's church-yard, and 
undertook the education of John and Edward 
Philips, his sister's sons. Fiading his rooms 
too little, he took a house and garden in Alders- 
gate-street,* which was not then so much 
out of the world as it is now ; and chose his 
dwelling at the upper end of a passage, that 
he might avoid the noise of the street. Here 
he received more boys to be boarded and in- 
structed. 

Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us 
to look with some degree of merriment on great 
promises and small performance, on the man 
who hastens home, because his countrymen are 
contending for their liberty, and, when he reach- 
es the scene of action, vapours away his patriot- 

* This is inaccurately expressed : Philips, and Dr. 
Newton after him, say a garden-house, i. e. a house 
situated in a garden, and of which there were, espe- 
cially in the north suburbs of London, very many, if 
not few else. The term is technical, and frequently 
occurs in the Athen. and Fast. Oxon. The meaning 
thereof may be collected from the article, Thomas | 
Parnaby, the famous schoolmaster, of whom the au- 
thor says, that he taught in Goldsmith's-rents, in 
Cripplegate parish, behind Redcross-street, where 
were large gardens and handsome houses. Milton's 
house in Jewin-street was also a garden-house, as 
were indeed most of his dwelliugs after his settle- 
ment in London. — H. 



ism in a private boarding school. This is the 
period of his life from which all his biographers 
seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling 
that Milton should be degraded to a school-mas- 
ter; but, since it cannot be denied that he 
taught boys, one finds out that he taught for 
nothing, and another that his motive was only 
zeal for the propagation of learning and virtue ; 
and all tell what they do not know to be true, 
only to excuse an act which no wise man will 
consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was 
alive ; his allowance was not ample ; and he 
supplied its deficiencies by an honest and useful 
employment. 

It is told that in the art of education he per- 
formed wonders ; and a formidable list is given 
of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read 
in Aldersgate-street by youth between ten and 
fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell 
or receive these stories, should consider, that no- 
body can be taught faster than he can learn. 
The speed of the horseman must be limited by 
the power of the horse. Every man that has 
ever undertaken to instruct others can tell what 
slow advances he has been able to make, and 
how much patience it requires to recal vagrant 
inattention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, 
and to rectify absurd misapprehension. 

The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to 
teach something more solid than the common 
literature of schools, by reading those authors 
that treat of physical subjects ; such as the 
Georgic and astronomical treatises of the ancients. 
This was a scheme of improvement which seems 
to have busied many literature projectors of that 
age. Cowley, who had more means than Mil- 
ton of knowing what was wanting to the em- 
bellishments of life, formed the same plan of 
education in his imaginary college. 

But the truth is, that the knowledge of exter- 
nal nature, and the sciences which that know- 
ledge requires or includes, are not the great or 
the frequent business of the human mind. 
Whether we provide for action or conversation, 
whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the 
first requisite is the religious and moral know- 
ledge of right and wrong ; the next is an ac- 
quaintance with the history of mankind, and 
with those examples which may be said to em- 
body truth, and prove by events the reasonable- 
ness of opinions. Prudence and justice are vir- 
tues and excellences of all times and of all places ; 
we are perpetually moralists, but we are geom- 
etricians only by chance. Our intercourse with 
intellectual nature is necessary ; our speculations 
upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure. 
Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, 
that one may know another half his life, with- 
out being able to estimate his skill in hydrostat- 
tics or astronomy ; but his moral and prudential 
character immediately appears. 

Those authors, therefore, are to be read at 



MILTON. 



29 



schools that supply most axioms of prudence, 
most principles of moral truth, and most mate- 
rials for conversation ; and these purposes are 
best served by poets, orators, and historians. 

Let me not he censured for this digression as 
pedantic or paradoxical ; for, if I have Milton 
against me, I have Socrates on my side. It was 
his labour to turn philosophy from the study of 
nature to speculations upon life ; but the innova- 
tors whom I oppose are turning off attention 
from life to nature. They seem to think that we 
are placed here to watch the growth of plants, 
or the motions of the stars : Socrates was rather 
of opinion, that what we had to learn was, how 
to do good, and avoid evil. 

Orrt rot iv /jciycc^oici xxxcwt' a.yoc.QovTt riTVZTOii, 

Of institutions we may judge by their effects. 
From this wonder working academy, I do not 
know that there ever proceeded any man very 
eminent for knowledge : its only genuine pro- 
duct, I believe, is a small history of poetry, 
written in Latin by his nephew Philips, of which 
perhaps none of my readers has ever heard. * 

That in his school, as in every thing else 
which he undertook, he laboured with great di- 
ligence, there is no reason for doubting. One 
part of his method deserves general imitation. 
He was careful to instruct his scholars in reli- 
gion. Every Sunday was spent upon theology ; 
of which he dictated a short system, gathered 
from the writers that were then fashionable in 
the Dutch universities. 

He set his pupils an example of hard study 
and spare diet : only now and then he allowed 
himself to pass a day of festivity and indulgence 
with some gay gentlemen of Gray's Inn. 

He now began to engage in the controversies 
of the times, and lent his breath to blow the 
flames of contention. In 1641 he published a 
treatise of Reformation, in two books, Against 
the established church; being willing to help 
the puritans, who were, he says, " inferior to the 
prelates in learning." 

Hall, bishop of Norwich, had published an 
Humble Remonstrance, in defence of episco- 
pacy; to which, in 1641, five ministers, f of 
whose names the first letters made the celebrat- 
ed word Smectymnuns, gave their Answer. Of 

* Johnson did not here allude to Philips's " Thea- 
trum Poetarum," as has been ignorantly supposed, 
but fas he himself informed Mr. Malone) to another 
work by the same author, entitled, " Tractatulus de 
Carmine dramatis Poetarum Veterum praesertim in 
Choris tragicis et veteris Comoediae. Cui subjungi- 
tur compendiose enumeratio poetarum (saltern quo. 
rum fame maxim emituit) qui a tempore Dantis 
Atigini usquead hunc setatem claruerunt, " &c. 
— J.B. 

+ Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas 
Young, Matthew Newcomen, William Spurstow. — R. 



| this Answer a Confutation was attempted by 
the learned Usher ; and to the Confutation Mil- 
ton published a reply, entitled, " Of Prelatical 
Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced 
from the Apostolical Times, by virtue of those 
Testimonies which are alleged to that purpose 
in some late Treatises, one whereof goes under 
the Name of James, Lord Bishop of Armagh." 
I have transcribed this title to show, by his 
contemptuous mention of Usher, that he had 
noAv adopted the puritanical savagehess of man- 
ners. His next work was, " The Reason of 
Church Government urged against Prelacy, by 
Mr. John Milton, 1642." In this book he dis- 
covers, not with ostentatious exultation, but 
with calm confidence, his high opinion of his 
own powers ; and promises to undertake some- 
thing, he yet knows not what, that may be of 
use and honour to his country. " This," says 
he, " is not to be obtained but by devout prayer 
to that eternal Spirit that can enrich with all 
utterance and knowledge, and sends out his se- 
raphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to 
touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. 
To this must be added, industrious and select 
reading, steady observation, and insight into all 
seemly and generous arts and affairs ; till which 
in some measure be compassed, I refuse not to 
sustain this expectation." From a promise like 
this, at once fervid, pious, and rational, might 
be expected the " Paradise Lost." 

He published the same year two more pamph- 
lets, upon the same question. To one of his an- 
tagonists, who affirms that he was " vomited 
out of the University," he answers in general 
terms. " The fellows of the college wherein I 
spent some years, at my parting, after I had 
taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified 
many times how much better it would content 
them that I should stay. — As for the common 
approbation or dislike of that place as now it is, 
that I should esteem or disesteem myself the 
more for that, too simple is the answerer, if he 
think to obtain with me. Of small practice were 
the physician who could not judge, by what she 
and her sister have of long time vomited, that the 
worser stuff she strongly keeps in her stomach, 
but the better she is ever kecking at, and is 
queasy ; she vomits now out of sickness ; but 
before it will be well with her, she must vomit 
by strong physic. The University, in the time 
of her better health, and my younger judgment, 
I never greatly admired, but now much less." 

This is surely the language of a man who 
thinks that he has been injured. He proceeds 
to describe the course of his conduct, and the 
train of his thoughts ; and, because he has been 
suspected of incontinence, gives an account of 
his own purity: " that if I be justly charged," 
says he, " with this crime, it may come upon 
me with tenfold shame." 

The style of his piece is rough, and such per- 
E 



30 



MILTON. 



^fiaps was that of his antagon st. This rough- 
ness he justifies by great examples in a long di- 
gression. Sometimes he tries to be humorous : 
" Lest I should take him for some chaplain in 
hand, some squire of the body to his prelate, one 
who serves not at the altar only, but at the 
; court-cupboard, he will bestow on us a pretty 
model of himself; and sets me out half a dozen 
phthisical mottoes, wherever he had them, hop- 
ping short in the measure of convulsion fits ; in 
which labour the agony of his wit having escaped 
narrowly, instead of well-sized periods, he greets 
us with a quantity of thumbring poesies. And 
thus ends this section, or rather dissection, of 
himself." Such is the controversial merriment 
of Milton ; his gloomy seriousness is yet more 
offensive. Such is his malignity, that hell grows 
darker at his frown. 

His father, after Reading was taken by Essex, 
came to reside in his house ; and his school in- 
creased. At Whitsuntide, in his thirty-fifth 
year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. 
Powell, a justice of the peace in Oxfordshire. 
He brought her to town with him, and expected 
all the advantages of a conjugal life. The lady, 
however, seems not much to have delighted in 
the pleasures of spare diet and hard study ; for, 
as Philips relates, " having for a month led a 
philosophic life, after having been used at home 
to a great house, and much company and jovia- 
lity, her friends, possibly by her own desire, 
made earnest suit to have her company the re- 
maining pari of the summer; which was grant- 
ed upon a promise of her return at Michaelmas. " 

Milton was too busy to much miss his wife ; 
he pursued his studies ; and now and then visit- 
fad the Lady Margaret Leigh, whom he has men- 
tioned in one of his sonnets. At last Michael- 
mas arrived ; but the lady had no inclination to 
return to the sullen gloom of her husband's ha- 
bitation, and therefore very willingly forgot her 
promise. He sent her a letter, but had no an- 
swer : he sent more with the same success. It 
could be alleged that letters miscarry ; he there- 
fore despatched a messenger, being by this time 
too angry to go himself. His messenger was 
sent back with some contempt. The family of 
the Lady were cavaliers. 

In a man, whose opinion of his own merit 
was like Milton's, less provocation than this 
might have raised violent resentment. Milton 
soon determined to repudiate her for disobedi- 
ence ; and, being one of those who could easily 
find arguments to justify inclination, published 
(in 1644) " The Doctrine and Discipline of Di- 
vorce ;" which was followed by " The Judg- 
ment of Martin Bucer, concerning Divorce ;" 
and the next year, his Tetrachordon, " Exposi- 
tions upon the four chief Places of Scripture 
which treat of Marriage." 

This innovation was opposed, as might be ex- 
pected, by the clergy, who, then holding their 



famous assembly at Westminster, procured that 
the author should be called before the Lords ; 
" but that House," says Wood, " whether ap- 
proving the doctrine, or not favouring his ac- 
cusers, did soon dismiss him." 

There seems not to have been much written 
against him, nor any thing by any writer of emi- 
nence. * The antagonist that appeared is styled 
by him, A serving man turned solicitor. Hovvel, 
in his Letters, mentions the new doctrine with 
contempt ;f and it was, I suppose, thought 
more worthy of derision than of confutation. 
He complains of this neglect in two sonnets, of 
which the first is contemptible, and the second 
not excellent. 

From this time it is observed, that he became 
an enemy to the presbyterians, whom he had 
favoured before. He that changes his party by 
his humour, is not more virtuous than he that 
changes it by his interest ; he loves himself 
rather than truth. 

His wife and her relations now found that 
Milton was not an unresisting sufferer of in- 
juries; and perceiving that he had begun to put 
his doctrine in practice, by courting a young 
woman of great accomplishments, the daughter 
of one Doctor Davis, who was however not 
ready to comply, they resolved to endeavour a 
re-union. He went sometimes to the house of 
one Blackborough, his relation, in the lane of 
St. Martin's le- Grand, and at one of his usual 
visits was surprised to see his wife come from 
another room, and implore forgiveness on her 
knees. He resisted her intreaties for a while : 
" but partly," says Philips, " his own generous 
nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to 
perseverance in anger or revenge, and partly the 
strong intercession of friends on both sides, soon 
brought him to an act of oblivion and a firm 
league of peace." It were injurious to omit, 
that Milton afterwards received her father and 
her brothers in his own house, when they were 
distressed, with other royalists. 

He published about the same time his Areopa- 
gitica, a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liber- 
ty °f unlicensed Printing. The danger of such 
j unbounded liberty, and the danger of bounding 
I it, have produced a problem in the science of go- 
' vernment, which human understanding seems 
j hitherto unable to solve. If nothing may be 
j published but what civil authority shall have 
previously approved, power must always be the 
| standard of truth: if every dreamer of innova- 
tions may propagate his projects, there can be 



* It was animadverted upon, but without any men- 
tion of Milton's name, by Bishop Hall, in bis Cases 
of Conscience Decaie, 4, Case 2. — J. B. 

t He terms the author of it a shallow brain'J puppy; 
and thus refers to it in his index, " Of a noddy who 
wrote a book about winning."— J. B. 



MILTON. 



SI 



no settlement; if every murmurer at government 
may diffuse discontent, there can be no peace ; 
and if every sceptic in theology may teach his 
follies, there can be no religion. The remedy 
against these evils is to punish the authors ; for 
it is yet allowed that every society may punish, 
though not prevent, the publication of opinions 
which that society shall think pernicious ; but 
this punishment, though it may crush the au- 
thor, promotes the book ; and it seems not more 
reasonable to leave the right of printing unre- 
strained because writers may be afterwards cen- 
sured, than it would be to sleep with doors un- 
bolted because by our laws we can hang a thief. 

But, whatever were his engagements, civil or 
domestic, poetry was never long out of his 
thoughts. 

About this time (1645) a collection of his La- 
tin and English poems appeared, in which the 
"Allegro" and " Penseroso," with some others, 
were first published. 

He had taken a larger house in Barbican for 
the reception of scholars ; but the numerous re- 
lations of his wife, to whom he generously grant- 
ed refuge for a while, occupied his rooms. In 
time however, they went away : " and the 
house again," says Philips, " now looked like 
a house of the muses only, though the accession 
of scholars was not great. Possibly his having 
proceeded so far in the education of youth may 
have been the occasion of his adversaries calling 
him pedagogue and schoolmaster ; whereas it is 
well known he never set up for a public school, 
to teach all the young fry of a parish ; but only 
was willing to impart his learning and know- 
ledge to his relations, and the sons of gentlemen 
who were his intimate friends, and that neither 
his writings nor his way of teaching ever sa- 
voured in the least of pedantry." 

Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate 
what cannot be denied, and what might be con- 
fessed without disgrace. Milton was not* a man 
who could become mean by a mean employ- 
ment. This, however, his warmest friends 
seem not to have found ; they therefore shift 
and palliate. He did not sell literature to all 
comers at an open shop; he was a chamber- 
milliner, and measured his commodities only to 
his friends. 

Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him 
in this state of degradation, tells us that it was 
not long continued : and, to raise his character 
again, has a mind to invest him with military 
splendour: "He is much mistaken," he says, 
" if there was not about this time a design of 
making him an adjutant-general in Sir William 
Waller's army. But the new-modelling of the 
army proved an obstruction to the design." An 
event cannot be set at a much greater distance 
than by having been only designed about some 
time, if a man be not much mistaken. Milton 
shall be a pedagogue no longer : for, if Philips 



be not much mistaken, somebody at some time 
designed him for a soldier. 

About the time that the army was new-mo- 
delled, (1645,) he removed to a smaller house in 
Holborn, which opened backward into Lin- 
coln's Inn Fields. He is not known to have 
published any thing afterwards till the King's 
death, when, finding his murderers condemned 
by the presbyterians, he wrote a treatise to jus- 
tify it, and to compose the minds of the people. 

He made some " Remarks on the Articles of 
Peace between Ormond and the Irish Rebels." 
While he contented himself to write, he per- 
haps did only what his conscience dictated ; 
and if he did not very vigilantly watch the in- 
fluence of his own passions, and the gradual 
prevalence of opinions, first willingly admitted, 
and then habitually indulged ; if objections, by 
being overlooked, were forgotten, and desire su- 
perinduced conviction ; he yet shared only the 
common weakness of mankind, and might be 
no less sincere than his opponents. But as fac- 
tion seldom leaves a man honest, however it 
might find him, Milton is suspected of having 
interpolated the book called " Icon Basilike," 
which the council of state, to whom he was 
now made Latin secretary, employed him to 
censure, by inserting a prayer taken from Sid- 
ney's " Arcadia," and imputing it to the King ; 
whom he charges, in his " Iconoclastes," with 
the use of this prayer, as with a heavy crime, 
in the indecent language with which prosperity 
had emboldened the advocates for rebellion to 
insult all that is venerable or great : " Who 
would have imagined so little fear in him of the 
true all-seeing Deity— as, immediately before 
his death, to pop into the hands of the grave 
bishop that attended him, as a special relic of 
his saintly exercises, a prayer stolen word for 
word from the mouth of a heathen woman 
pi'aying to a heathen god ?" 

The papers which the King gave to Dr. 
Juxon on the scaffold the regicides took away, 
so that they were at least the publishers of this 
prayer ; and Dr. Birch, who had examined the 
question with great care, was inclined to think 
them the forgers. The use of it by adaptation 
Avas innocent ; and they who could so noisily 
censure it, with a little extension of their ma- 
lice, could contrive what they wanted to 
accuse. 

King Charles the Second, being now sheltered 
in Holland, employed Salmasius, professor of 
polite learning at Leyden, to write a defence of 
his father and of monarchy ; and, to excite his 
industry, gave him, as was reported, a hundred 
Jacobuses. Salmasius- was a man of skill in 
languages, knowledge of antiquity, and sagacity 
of emendatory criticism, almost exceeding all 
hope of human attainment ; and having, by ex- 
cessive praises, been confirmed in great con- 
fidence of himself, though he probably had not 



32 



M ILTON. 



much considered the principles of society, or 
the rights of government, undertook the em- 
ployment without distrust of his own quali- 
fications ; and, as his expedition in writing 
was wonderful, in 1649 published "Defensio 
Regis." 

To this Milton was required to write a suffi- 
cient answer; which he performed (1651) in 
such a manner, that Hobbes declared himself 
unable to decide whose language was best, or 
whose arguments were worst. In my opinion, 
Milton's periods are smoother, neater, and 
more pointed ; but he delights himself with 
teasing his adversary as much as with confuting 
him. He makes a foolish allusion of Salmasius, 
whose doctrine he considers as servile and un- 
manly, to the stream of Salmasius, which, who- 
ever entered, left half his virility behind him. 
Salmasius was a Frenchman, and was unhappi- 
ly married to a scold. Tu es Gallus, says Mil- 
ton, et, ut aiunt, nimium gallinaceus. But his 
supreme pleasure is to tax his adversary, so re- 
nowned for criticisms, "with vicious Latin. He 
opens his hook with telling that he has usedper- 
sona, which according to Milton, signfies only 
a mask, in a sense not known to the Romans, 
by applying it as we apply person. But as Ne- 
mesis is always on the watch, it is memorable 
that he has enforced the charge of a solecism 
hy an expression in itself grossly solecistical, 
when for one of those supposed hlunders, he 
says, as Ker, and I think some one before him, 
has remarked, propino te grammatistis tuis va- 
puladum.* From vapulo, which has a passive 
sense, vapulandus can never be derived. No 
man forgets his original trade ; the rights of na- 
tions, and of kings, sink into questions of gram- 
mar, if grammarians discuss them. 

Milton, when he undertook this answer, was 
weak of body and dim of sight ; but his will 
was forward, and what was wanting of health 
was supplied by zeal. He was rewarded with 
a thousand pounds, and his book was much read ; 
for paradox, recommended by spirit and elegance, 
easily gains attention ; and he, who told every 
man that he was equal to his King, could hard- 
ly want an audience. 

That the performance of Salmasius was not 
dispersed with equal rapidity, or read with equal 
eagerness, is very credible. He taught only the 
stale doctrine of authority, and the unpleasing 
duty of submission, and he had been so long not 
only the monarch but the tyrant of literature, 
that almost all mankind were delighted to find 
him defied and insulted by a new name, not yet 
considered as any one's rival. If Christiana, as 



* The wort here referred to, is " Selectarura de 
lingua Latina observationem libri duo. Ductu et cura 
Joannis Ker. 1719." Ker, observes, that vapulandum 
is " pinguis sokecismus ;" and quotes Varassor and 
Crimius. — J. B. 



is said, commended the Defence of the People, her 
purpose must be to torment Salmasius, who Avas 
then at court ; for neither her civil station, nor 
her natural character, could dispose her to fa- 
vour the doctrine, who was by birth a queen, 
and by temper despotic. 

That Salmasius was, from the appearance of 
Milton's book, treated with neglect, there is not 
much proof ; but to a man so long accustomed 
to admiration, a little praise of his antagonist 
"would be sufficiently offensive, and might in- 
cline him to leave Sweden, from which however 
he was dismissed, not with any mark of con- 
tempt, but with a train of attendance scarcely 
less than regal. 

He prepared a reply, which, left as it was im- 
perfect, was published by his son in the year of 
the Restoration. In the beginning, being pro- 
bably most in pain for his Latinity, he endea- 
vours to defend his use of the word persona; hut, 
if I remember right, he misses a better authority 
than any that he has found, that of Juvenal in 
his fourth satire : 

—Quid agas, cum dira et foedior omni 
Criiidne persona est ? 

As Salmasius reproached Milton with losing 
his eyes in the quarrel, Milton delighted him- 
self with the belief that he had shortened Sal- 
masius's life, and both perhaps with more ma- 
lignity than reason. Salmasius died at the Spa, 
Sept. 3, 1653; and as controvertists are com- 
monly said to be killed by their last dispute, Mil- 
ton was flattered with the credit of destroying 
him. 

Cromwell had now dismissed the parliament 
by the authority of which he had destroyed mo- 
narchy, and commenced monarch himself, under 
the title of Protector, but with kingly and more 
than kingly power. That his authority was 
lawful, never was pretended ; he himself found- 
ed his right only in necessity ; but Milton, hav- 
ing now tasted the honey of public employment, 
would not return to hunger and philosophy; 
but, continuing to exercise his office under a ma- 
nifest usurpation, betrayed to his power that li- 
berty which he had defended. Nothing can be 
more just than that rebellion should end in sla- 
very ; that he who had justified the murder of 
his king, for some acts which seemed to him un- 
lawful, should now sell his services and his flat- 
teries, to a tyrant, of whom it was evident that 
he could do nothing lawful. 

He had now heen blind for some years ; hut 
his vigour of intellect was such, that he was not 
disabled to discharge his office of Latin secre- 
tary, *or continue his controversies. His mind 
was too eager to be diverted, and too strong to 
he subdued. 

About this time his first wife died in child- 
bed, having left him three daughters. As he 
probably did not much love her, he did not long 



MILTON. 



33 



eontinue the appearance of lamenting her ; but 
after a short time married Catharine, the daugh- 
ter of one Captain Woodcock, of Hackney ; a 
woman doubtless educated in opinions like his 
own. She died, within a year, of child-birth, 
or some distemper that followed it ; and her 
husband honoured her memory with a poor 
sonnet. 

The first reply to Milton's " Defensio Populi" 
was published in 1651, called " Apologia pro 
Rege et PopuloAnglicano, contra Johannis Poly- 
pragmatici (alias Miltoni) defensionem destruc- 
tivam Regis et Populi." Of this the author 
was not known ; but Milton, and his nephew 
Philips, under whose name he published an an- 
swer so much corrected by him that it might be 
called his own, imputed it to Eramhal ; and, 
knowing him no friend to regicides, thought 
themselves at liberty to treat him as if they had 
known what they only suspected. 

Next year appeared " Regii Sanguinis clamor 
ad Coelum." Of this the author was Peter du 
Moulin, who was afterwards prebendary of Can- 
terbury ; but Morus, or More, a French minis- 
ter, having the care of its publication, was 
treated as the writer by Milton in his " Defen- 
sio Secunda," and overwhelmed by such violence 
of invective, that he began to shrink under the 
tempest, and gave his persecutors the means of 
knowing the true author. Du Moulin was now 
in great danger; but Milton's pride operated 
against his malignity; and both he and his 
friends were more willing that Du Moulin 
should escape than that he should be convicted 
of mistake. 

In this second defence he shows that his elo- 
quence is not merely satirical ; the rudeness of 
his invective is equalled by the grossness of his 
flattery. " Deserimer, Cromuelle, tu solus su- 
peres, ad te summa nostrarum rerum rediit, in 
te solo consistit, insuperabili tuae virtuti cedimus 
cuncti, nemine vel obloquente, nisi qui ft quales 
insequalis ipse honores sibi quserit, aut digniori 
concessos invidet, aut non intelligit nihil esse in 
societate hominum magis vel Deo gratum, vel 
rationi consentaneum, esse in civitate nihil aequi- 
us, nihil utilius, quam potiri rerum dignissi- 
mum. Eum te agnoscunt omnes, Cromuelle, ea 
tu civis maximus et gloriosissimus,* dux publici 
consilii, exercituum fortissimorum imperator, 
pater patriae gessisti. Sic tu spontanea bono- 
rum omnium etanimitus missa voce salutaris." 

Caesar when he assumed the perpetual dicta- 
torship, had not more servile or more elegant 
flattery. A translation may show its servility ; 
but its elegance is less attainable. Having ex- 
posed the unskilf ulness or selfishness of the for- 



* It may be doubted whether gloriosissimus be 
here used with Milton's boasted purity. Res glorio- 
sa is an illustrious thing; ut vir gloriosus is com- 
monly a braggart, as in miles gturiosus.—Bi:. J. 



mer government, " We were left," says Milton, 
" to ourselves : the whole national interest fell 
into your hands, and subsists only in your abil- 
ities. To your virtue, overpowering and resist- 
less, every man gives way, except some who, 
without equal qualifications, aspire to equal hon- 
ours, who envy the distinctions of merit greater 
than their own, or who have yet to learn, that 
in the coalition of human society nothing is 
more pleasing to God, or more agreeable to 
reason, than that the highest mind should have 
the sovereign power. Such, Sir, are you by 
general confession ; such are the things achieved 
by you, the greatest and most glorious of our 
countrymen, the director of our public councils, 
the leader of unconquered armies, the father of 
your country ; for by that title does every good 
man hail you with sincere and voluntary 
praise." 

Next year, having defended all that want- 
ed defence, he found leisure to defend him- 
self. He undertook his own vindication 
against More, whom he declares in his title to 
be justly called the author of the " Regii San- 
guinis Clamor." In this there is no want of 
vehemence or eloquence, nor does he forget his 
wonted wit. " Morus es ? an Momus ? an uter- 
que idem est ?" He then remembers that Morus 
is Latin for a mulberry-tree, and hints at 
the known transformation : 

Poma alba ferebat 

Quae post nigra tulit Morus. 

With this piece ended his controversies ; and 
he from this time gave himself up to his private 
studies and hi? civil employment. 

As secretary to the Protector, he is supposed 
to have written the declaration of the reasons 
for a war with Spain. His agency was con- 
sidered as of great importance ; for, when a 
treaty with Sweden was artfully suspended* the 
delay was publicly imputed to Mr. Milton's in- 
disposition ; and the Swedish agent was pro- 
voked to express his wonder, that only one man 
in England could write Latin, and that man 
blind. 

Being now forty-seven years old, and seeing 
himself disencumbered from external interrup- 
tions, he seems to have recollected his former 
purposes, and to have resumed three great works 
which he had planned for his future employ- 
ment ; an epic poem, the history of his country, 
and a dictionary of the Latin tongue* 

To collect a dictionary, seems a work of all 
others least practicable in a state of blindness, be- 
cause it depends upon perpetual and minute in- 
spection and collation. Nor would Milton pro- 
bably have begun it after he had lost his eyes; 
but, having had it always before him, he con- 
tinued it, says Philips, " almost to his dying 
day ; but the papers were so discomposed and 
deficient, that they could not be fitted for the 



34 



MILTON. 



press." The compilers of the Latin dictionary 
printed at Cambridge, had the use of those col- 
lections in three folios ; but what was their fate 
afterwards is not known.* 

To, compile a history from various authors, 
when they can only be consulted by other eyes, 
is not easy, nor possible, but with more skilful 
and attentive help than can be commonly obtain- 
ed ; and it was probably the difficulty of consult- 
ing and comparing that stopped Milton's narra- 
tive at the Conquest ; a period at which affairs 
were not very intricate, nor authors very nu- 
merous. 

For the subject of his epic poem, after much 
deliberation, long choosing, and beginning late, 
he fixed upon " Paradise Lost ;" a design so 
comprehensive, that it could be justified only by 
success. He had once designed to celebrate 
King Arthur, as he hints in his verses to Man- 
sus ; but " Arthur was reserved," says Fenton, 
" to another destiny, "f 

It appears, by some sketches of poetical pro- 
jects left in manuscript, and to be seen in a lib- 
rary:): at Cambridge, that he had digested his 
thoughts on this subject into one of those wild 
dramas which were anciently called Mysteries : § 
and Philips had seen what he terms part of a 
tragedy, beginning with the first ten lines of 
Satan's address to the sun. These mysteries 
consist of allegorical persons ; such as Justice, 
Mercy, Faith. Of the tragedy or mystery of 
" Paradise Lost" there are two plans : 



The Persons. 
Michael. 

Chorus of Angels, 
Heavenly Love. 



The Persons. 
Moses. 

Divinp Justice, Wisdom. 
Heavenly Love. 



* The " Cambridge Dictionary," published in 4to. 
1093, is no other than a copy, with some small addi- 
tions, of that of Dr. Adam Littleton in 1685, by sun- 
dry persons, of whom, though their names are con- 
cealed, there is great reason to conjecture that Mil- 
ton's nephew, Edward Philips, is one ; for it is ex- 
pressly said by Wood, Fasti, vol. I. p. 266, that 
" Milton's Thesaurus" came to his hands ; and it is 
asserted, in the preface thereto, that the editors 
thereof had the use of three large folios in manu- 
script, collected and digested into alphabetical order 
by Mr. John Milton. 

It has been remarked, that the additions, togethei 
with the preface abovementioned, and a large part 
of the title of the " Cambridge Dictionary," have been 
incorporated and printed with the subsequent editions 
of " Littleton's Dictionary," till that of 1735. Vid. 
Biog. Brit. 2985, in not.— So that, for aught that 
appears to the contrary, Philips was the last pos- 
sessor of Milton's MS.— H. 

t Id est, to be the subject of an heroic poem, writ- 
ten by Sir Richard Blackmore. — H. 

% Trinity College.— R. 

§ The dramas in which Justice, Mercy, Faith, &c. 
were introduced, were Moralities, not Mysteries. — 
Maloke. 



Lucifer. 

Adam 
E 



dam, 7 • 
ve, j wl 

Conscience. 
Death. 

Labour, "J 

Sickness, I 

Discontent. L. 
Ignorance, I 
with others ; J 
Faith. 
Hope. 
Charity. 



The Evening Star, Hes 
nerus. 
with the Serpent. Chorus of Angels. 



Mutes. 



Lucifer. 

Adam. 

Eve. 

Conscience. 

Labour, ~J 

Sickness, 

Discontent, ! 

Ignorance, > Mutey ' 

Fear, 

Death. J 

Faith, Hopj, Charity. 



PARADISE LOST. 

The Persons. 

Moses x^oXoy'iiu, recounting how he assumed 
his true body ; that it corrupts not, because it is 
with God in the mount ; declares the like with 
Enoch and Elijah : besides the purity of the 
place, that certain pure winds, dews, and clouds 
preserve it from corruption ; whence exhorts to 
the sight of God ; tells they cannot see Adam 
in the state of innocence, by reason of their sin. 

-., ' i. debating what should become of man, if 

Wisdom, > he fal1 ' 

Chorus of Angels singing a hymn of the Crea'ion. 

ACT II. 

Heavenly Love. 
Evening Star. 

Chorus sings the marriage-song, and describes Para- 
dise. 

ACT III. 

Lucifer contriving Adam's ruin. 

Chorus fears for Adam, and relates Lucifer's rebel- 
lion and fall. 

ACT IV. 



fallen. 



Adam, 

Eve, 

Conscience cites them to God's examination. 

Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam has lost. 

ACT. V. 

Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise. 
. .... presented by an angel with 
Labour, Grief, Hatred, Envy, War, Fa- "J 

mine, Pestilence, Sickness, Discon- >■ Mutes. 

tent, Ignorance, Fear, Death, ) 

To whom he gives their names. Likewise Winter, 

Heat, Tempest, &c. 
Faith, 

comfort him and instruct him. 



Faith, "J 
Hope, V 

Charity, J 



Charity, 

Chorus briefly concludes. 

Such was his first design, which could have 
produced only an allegory, or mystery. The 
following sketch seems to have attained morn 
maturity. 



MILTON. 



Adam vnparadised : 

The angel Gabriel, either descending or enter- 
ing; showing, since this globe was created, his fre- 
quency as much on earth as in heaven : describes 
Paradise. Next the Chorus, showing the reason 
of his coming to keep his watch in Paradise, 
after Lucifer's rebellion, by command from God: 
and withal expressing his desire to see and know 
more concerning this excellent new creature, 
man. The angel Gabriel, as by his name sig- 
nifying a prince of power, tracing Paradise Avith 
a more free office, passes by the station of the 
Chorus, and, desired by them, relates what he 
knew of man : as the creation of Eve, with their 
love and marriage. After this, Lucifer appears ; 
after his overthrow, bemoans himself, seeks re- 
venge on man. The Chorus prepare resistance 
on his first approach. At last, after discourse 
of enmity on either side, he departs : whereat 
the Chorus sings of the battle and victory in 
heaven, against him and his accomplices : as be- 
fore, after the first act, was sung a hymn of the 
creation. Here again may appear Lucifer, re- 
lating and exulting in what he had done to the 
destruction of man. Man next, and Eve, hav- 
ing by this time been seduced by the Serpent, 
appears confusedly covered with leaves. Con- 
science in a shape accuses him ; Justice cites 
him to a place whither Jehovah called for him. 
In the meanwhile, the Chorus entertains the 
stage, and is informed by some angel the man- 
ner of the fall. Here the Chorus bewails Adam's 
fall. Adam then and Eve return : accuse one 
another ; but especially Adam lays the blame to 
his wife; is stubborn in his offence. Justice 
appears, reasons with him, convinces him. 
The Chorus admonisheth Adam, and bids him 
beware Lucifer's example of impenitence. The 
angel is sent to banish them out of paradise : but 
before causes to pass before his eyes, in shapes, 
a mask of all the evils of this life and world. He 
is humble, relents, despairs; at last appears 
Mercy, comforts him, promises the Messiah; 
then calls in Faith, Hope, and Charity ; instructs 
him ; he repen'ts, gives God the glory, submits 
to his penalty. The Chorus briefly concludes. 
Compare this with the former draught. 

These are very imperfect rudiments of " Pa- 
radise Lost ;" but it is pleasant to see great 
works in their seminal state, pregnant with la- 
tent possibilities of excellence ; nor could there 
be any more delightful entertainment than to 
trace their gradual growth and expansion, and 
to observe how they are sometimes suddenly 
improved by accidental hints, and sometimes 
slowly improved by steady meditation. 

Invention is almost the only literary labour 
which blindness cannot obstruct, and therefore 
he naturally solaced his solitude by the indul- 
gence of his fancy, and the melody of his num- 
bers. He had done what he knew to be necessari- 



ly previous to poetical excellence ; he had made 
himself acquainted with seemly arts and affairs .- 
his comprehension was extended by various 
knowledge, and his memory stored with intel- 
lectual treasures. He was skilful in many 
languages, and had by reading and composition 
attained the full mastery of his own. He 
would have wanted little help from books, had 
he retained the power of perusing them. 

But while his greater designs were advancing, 
having now, like many other authors, caught the 
love of publication, he amused himself, as he 
could, with little productions. He sent to the press 
(1658) a manuscript of Raleigh, called " The 
Cabinet Council ;" and next year gratified his 
malevolence to the clergy, by a " Treatise of Ci- 
vil power in Ecclesiastical Cases, and the Means 
of removing Hirelings out of the Church." 

Oliver was now dead, Richard was constrain- 
ed to resign : the system of extemporary govern- 
ment, which had been held together only by 
force, naturally fell into fragments when that 
force was taken away ; and Milton saw himself 
and his cause in equal danger. But he had still 
hope of doing something. He wrote letters, 
which Toland has published, to such men as he 
thought friends to the new commonwealth ; and 
even in the year of the Restoration he bated no 
jot of heart or hope, but was fantastical enough 
to think that the nation, agitated as it was, 
might be settled by a pamphlet, called, " A 
ready and easy Way to establish a free Common- 
wealth;" which was, however, enough consider- 
ed to be both seriously and ludicrously answered. 

The obstinate enthusiasm of the common- 
wealth-men was very remarkable. When the 
King was apparently returning, Harrington, 
with a few associates as fanatical as himself, 
used to meet, with all the gravity of political im- 
portance, to settle an equal government by rota- 
tion ; and Milton, kicking when he could strike 
no longer, was foolish enough to publish, a few 
weeks before the Restoration, " Notes upon a ser- 
mon preached by one Griffiths, entitled ' The 
Fear of God and the King." To these notes an 
answer was written by L'Estrange, in a pamph- 
let petulantly called "'No Blind Guides." 

But whatever Milton could write, or men of 
greater activity could do, the King was now 
about to be restored, with the irresistible appro- 
bation of the people. He was therefore no 
longer secretary, and was consequently obliged to 
quit the house, which he held by his office ; and, 
proportioning his sense of danger to his opinion 
of the importance of his writings, thought it 
convenient to seek some shelter, and hid himself 
for a time in Bartholomew-close, by West 
Smithfield. 

I cannot but remark a kind of respect, per- 
haps unconsciously, paid to this great man by his 
biographers : every house in which he resided is 
historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to 



36 



IvlILTON. 



neglect naming any place that lie honoured by 
his presence. 

The King, with lenity of which the world has 
had perhaps no other example, declined to he the 
judge or avenger of his own or his father's 
wrongs ; and promised to admit into the Act of 
Oblivion all, except those whom the parliament 
should except ; and the parliament doomed none 
to capital punishment but the wretches who had 
immediately co-operated in the murder of the 
King. Milton was certainly not one of them ; 
he had only justified what they had done. 

This justification was indeed sufficiently of- 
fensive ; and (June 16) an order was issued to 
seize Milton's " Defence," and Goodwin's " Ob- 
structors of Justice," another book of the same 
tendency, and burn them by the common hang- 
man. The attorney-general was ordered to pro- 
secute the authors ; but Milton was not seized, 
nor perhaps very diligently pursued. 

Not long after (August 19) the flutter of 
innumerable bosoms was stilled by an act, 
which the King, that his mercy might want no 
recommendation of elegance, rather called an 
Act of Oblivion than of Grace. Goodwin was 
named, with nineteen more, as incapacitated for 
any public trust ; but of Milton there was no 
exception. * 

Of this tenderness shown to Milton, the curi- 
osity of mankind has not furborn to inquire the 
reason. Burnet thinks he was forgotten; but 
this is another instance which may confirm Dai- 
ry mple's observation, who says, that " whenever 
Burnet's narrations are examined, he appears to 
be mistaken." 

Forgotten he was not ; for his prosecution was 
ordered ; it must be therefore by design that he 
was included in the general oblivion. He is 
said to have had friends in the House, such as 
Marvel, Morrice, and Sir Thomas Clarges : and, 
undoubtedly, a man like him must have had in- 
fluence. A very particular story of his escape is 
told by Richardsonf in his Memoirs, which he 
received from Pope, as delivered by Betterton, 
who might have heard it from Davenant. In 
the war between the King and parliament, Da- 
venant was made prisoner, and condemned to 
die ; but was spared at the request of Milton. 
When the turn of success brought Milton into 
the like danger, Davenant repaid the benefit by 



* Philips says expressly, that Milton was excepted 
and disqualified from bearing any office : but Toland 
says, he was not excepted at all, and consequently 
excluded in the General Pardon, or Act of Indem- 
nity passed the 29th of August, 1660. Toland is 
right ; for I find Goodwin and Ph. Nye the minister 
excepted in the Act, but Milton not named. How- 
ever, he obtained a special pardon in December, 
1G60, which passed the privy-seal, but not the great- 
seal. — Malone. 

t It was told before by A. Wood in Ath. Oxon, 
vol. il. p. 412, 2d edit.— C. 



appealing in his favour. Here is a reciproca- 
tion of generosity and gratitude so pleasing, that 
the tale makes its own way to credit. But, if 
help were wanted, I know not where to find it. 
The danger of Davenant is certain from his own 
relation ; but of his escape there is no account. * 
Betterton' s narration can be traced no higher ; it 
is not known that he had it from Davenant. 
We are told that the benefit exchanged was life 
for life ; but it seems not certain that Milton's 
life ever was in danger. Goodwin, who had 
committed the same kind of crime, escaped with 
incapacitation; and, as exclusion from public 
trust is a punishment Avhich the power of go- 
vernment can commonly inflict without the help 
of a particular law, it required no great interest 
to exempt Milton from a censure little more than 
verbal. Something may be reasonably ascribed 
to veneration and compassion — to veneration of 
his abilities, and compassion for his distresses, 
which made it fit to forgive his malice for his 
learning. He was now poor and blind : and 
who would pursue with violence an illustrious 
enemy, depressed by fortune, and disarmed by 
nature ?f 

The publication of the Act of Oblivion put 
him in the same condition with his fellow-sub- 
jects. He was, however, upon some pretence 
now not known, in the custody of the sergeant 
in December ; and when he was released, upon 
his refusal of the fees demanded, he and the ser- 
geant were called before the House. He was 
now safe within the shade of oblivion, and knew 
himself to be as much out of the power of a 
griping officer as any other man. How the 
question was determined is not known. Mil- 
ton would hardly have contended, but that he 
knew himself to have right on his side. 

He then removed to Je win-street, near Al- 
dersgate-street ; and, being blind and by no 
means wealthy, wanted a domestic companion 
and attendant ; and therefore, by the recom- 
mendation of Dr. Paget, married Elizabeth 
Minshul, of a gentleman's family in Cheshire, 
probably without a fortune. All his wives 
were virgins ; for he has declared that he thought 
it gross and indelicate to be a second husband : 
upon what other principles his choice was made 



* That Milton saved Davenant is attested by Au- 
brey and by Wood from him ; but none of them say 
that Davenant saved Milton. This is Richardson's 
assertion merely. — Malone. 

t A different account of the means by which Mil- 
ton secured himself is given by an historian lately 
brought to light. " Milton, Latin secretary to Crom-' 
well, distinguished by bis writings in favour of the 
rights and liberties of the people, pretended to be 
dead, and had a public funeral procession. The 
King applauded his policy in escaping the punish- 
ment of death, by a seasonable show of dying." — 
Cunningham's History of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 14. 
— R. 



5 



MILTON. 



37 



taunot now be known ; but marriage afforded 
not much of his happiness. The first wife left 
him in disgust, and was brought back onlj by- 
terror ; the second, indeed, seems to have betn 
more a favourite, but her life was short. The 
third, as Philips relates, oppressed his chil- 
dren in his lifetime, and cheated them at his 
death. 

Soon after his marriage, according to an ob- 
scure story, he was offered the continuance of 
his employment, and, being pressed by his wife 
to accept it, answered, " You, like other wo- 
men, want to ride in your coach ; my wish is 
to live and die an honest man." If he consi- 
dered the Latin secretary as exercising any of 
the powers of government, he that had shared 
authority, either with the parliament or Crom- 
well, might have forborn to talk very loudly of 
his honesty; and if he thought the office purely 
ministerial, he certainly might have honestly re- 
tained it under the King. But this tale has too 
little evidence to deserve a disquisition ; large 
offers and sturdy rejections are among the most 
common topics of falsehood. 

He had so much either of prudence or grati- 
tude, that he forbore to disturb the new settle- 
ment with any of his political or ecclesiastical 
opinions, and from this time devoted himself to 
poetry and literature. Of his zeal for learning in 
all its parts, he gave a proof by publishing, the 
next year (1661), " Accidence commenced Gram- 
mar ;" a little book which has nothing remark- 
able, but that its author, who had been lately 
defending the supreme powers of his country, 
and was then writing " Paradise Lost," could 
descend from his elevation to rescue children 
from the perplexity of grammatical confusion, 
and the trouble of lessons unnecessarily repeat- 
ed.* 

About this time, El wood, the quaker, being 
recommended to him as one who would read 
Latin to him for the advantage of his conver- 
sation, attended him every afternoon except 
on Sundays. Milton, who, in his letter to 
Hartlib, had declared, that " to read Latin with 
an English mouth is as ill a hearing as Law 
French," required that Elwood should learn and 
practise the Italian pronunciation, which, he 
said, was necessary, if he would talk with fo- 
reigners. This seems to have been a task trouble-? 
some without use. There is little reason for 
preferring the Italian pronunciation to our own, 
except that it is more general ; and to teach it 
to an Englishman is only to make him a foreign- 
er at home. He who travels, if he speaks La- 



* Yelden in his continuation of Langbaine's account 
of the Dramatic Poets, 8vo. 1693, says, that he had 
been told that Milton, after the Restoration, kept a 
school at or near Greenwich. The publication of an 
Accidence at that period gives some countenance to 
this tradition. — Mahons 



tin, may so soon learn the sounds which every 
native gives it, that he need make no provision, 
before his journey ; and if strangers visit us, it 
is their business to practise such conformity to 
our modes as they expect from us in their own 
countries. Elwood complied with the direo 
tions, and improved himself by his attendance; 
for he relates, that Milton, having a curious ear, 
knew by his voice when he read what he did 
not understand, and would stop him, " and 
open the most difficult passages." 

In a short time he took a house in the Artil- 
lery-walk, leading to Bunhill-fields; the men- 
tion of which concludes the register of Milton'a 
removals and habitations. He lived longer in. 
this place than any other. 

He was now busied by " Paradise Lost." 
Whence he drew the original design has beers 
variously conjectured by men who cannot heap 
to think themselves ignorant of that which, afc 
last, neither diligence nor sagacity can discover,. 
Some find the hint in an Italian tragedy. Vol*- 
taire tells a wild and unauthorized story of $ 
farce seen by Milton in Italy, which opene<| 
thus : Let the rainbow be the fiddlestick of the fid" 
die of Heaven. * It has been already shown, that 
the first conception was a tragedy or mystery, 
not of a narrative, but a dramatic work, which 
he js supposed to have begun to reduce to its pre-* 
sent form about the time (1655) when he finished 
his dispute with the defenders of the King. 

He long before had promised to adorn his na*- 
tive country by some great performance, while 
he had yet, perhaps, no settled design, and was 
stimulated only by such expectations as natu? 
rally arose from the survey of his attainments, 
and the consciousness of his powers. What hg 
should undertake, it was difficult to determine, 
He was " long choosing, and began late." 

While he was obliged to divide his time be*- 
tween his private studies and affairs of state, his 
poetical labour must have been often interrupt 
ted ; and perhaps he did little more in that busy 
time than construct the narrative, adjust the 
episodes, proportion the parts, accumulaie images 
and sentiments, and treasure in his memory, of 
preserve in writing, such hints as books or me<? 
ditations would supply. Nothing particular is 
known of his intellectual operations while he 
was a statesman ; for, having every help and ac- 
commodation at hand, he had no need of uncom* 
mon expedients. 

Being driven from all public stations, he is 
yet too great not to be traced by curiosity to 
his retirement : where he has been found by 
Mr. Richardson, the fondest of his admirers, sit* 



* It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader, that 
this relation of Voltaire's was perfectly true, as fay 
as relates to the existence of the play which he 
speaks of, namely, the Adams of Andraini ; but it is 
still a question whether Milton ever saw it. — J. JL 
F 



MILTON. 



ting " before his door in a gray coat of coarse 
cloth, in warm sultry weather, to enjoy the 
fresh air ; and so, as in his own room, receiving j 
the visits of the people of distinguished parts as j 
well as quality." His visitors of high quality 
must now be imagined to be few; but men of 
parts might reasonably court the conversation ! 
of a man so generally illustrious, that foreigners 
are reported, by Wood, to have visited the house 
in Bread-street, where he was bom. 

According to another account, he was seen in 
a small house, " neatly enough dressed in black 
clothes, sitting in a room hung with rusty 
green ; pale but not cadaverous, with chalk- 
stones in. his bauds. Pie said, that, if it were not 
for the gout, his blindness would be tolerable." 

In the intervals of his pain, being made unable 
to use the common exercises, he used to swing 
in a chair, and sometimes played upon an organ. 

He was now confessedly and visibly employed 
upon liis poem, of which the progress might be 
noted by those with whom he was familiar ; for 
he was obliged, when he had composed as many 
lines as his memory would conveniently retain, 
to employ some friend in writing them, having, 
at least for part of the time, no regular attend- I 
ant. This gave opportunity to observations and j 
reports. 

Mr. Philips observes, that there was a very j 
remarkable circumstance in the composure of 
" Paradise Lost, which I have a particular 
reason," says he, "to remember; for whereas I ! 
had the perusal of it from the very beginning, 
for some years, as I went from time to time to 
visit him, in parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty 
verses at a time (which, being written by what- 
ever hand came next, might possibly want cor- 
rection as to the orthography and pointing,) 
having, as the summer came on, not being 
showed any for a considerable while, and desir- 
ing the reason thereof, was answered, that his 
vein never happily flowed but from the Autum- 
nal Equinox to the Vernal; and that whatever 
he attempted at other times was never to his 
satisfaction, though he courted his fancy never 
so much ; so that, in all the years he was about 
this poem, he may be said to have spent half 
his time therein." 

Upon this relation Toland remarks, that in 
his opinion Philips has mistaken the time of 
the year ; for Milton, in his elegies, declares, 
that with the advance of the spring- he feels the 
increase of his poetical force, redeunt in carmina 
vires. To this it is answered, that Philips could 
hardly mistake time so well marked ; and it 
may be added, that Milton might And different 
times of the year favourable to different parts 
of life. Mr. Richardson conceives it impossible 
that such a work should be suspended for six 
months, or for one. It may go on faster or 
slo.vei", but it must go on. By what necessity 
it muit continually go on, or why it might not 



be laid aside and resumed, it is not easy to dis- 
cover. 

This dependance of the soul upon the seasons, 
those temporary and periodical ebbs and flows 
of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be derided a3 
the fumes of vain imagination. Sajnens domiu- 
abitur astris. The author that thinks himself 
weather-bound will find, with a little help from 
hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. 
But while this notion has possession of the 
head, it produces the inability which it supposes. 
Our powers owe much of their energy to our 
hopes ; j>ossunt quia ]?osse videntur. When suc- 
cess seems attainable, diligence is enforced ; but 
when it is admitted that the faculties are sup- 
pressed by a cross wind, or a cloudy sky, the 
day is given up without resistance, for who can 
contend with the course of nature? 

From such prepossessions -Milton seems not 
to have been free. There prevailed in his time 
an opinion, that the world was in its decay, 
and that we have had the misforiune to be pro- 
duced in the decrepitude of Nature. It was 
suspected that the whole creation languished, 
that neither trees nor animals had the height or 
bulk of their predecessors, and that every thing 
was daily sinking by gradual diminution.* 
Milton appears to suspect that souls partake of 
the general degeneracy, and is not without some 
fear that his book is to be written in " an age 
too late" for heroic poesy.f 

Another opinion wanders about the world, 
and sometimes finds reception among wise men; 
an opinion that restrains the operations of the 
mind to particular regions, and supposes that a 
luckless mortal may be born in a degree of lati- 
tude too high or too low for wisdom or for wit. 
From this fancy, wild as it is, he had not wholly 
cleared his head, when he feared lest the climate 
of his country might be too cold for flights of 
imagination 

Into a mind already occupied by such fancies, 
another not more reasonable might easily find its 
way. He that could fear lest his genius had 
fallen upon too old a world, or too chill a cli- 
mate, might consistently magnify to himself the 

# This opinion is, with great learning and ingenu- 
ity, refuted in a book now very little known, "An 
Apology or Declaration of the Power and Providence 
of God in the Government of the World," by Dr. 
George Hakewill, London, folio, 1635. The first who 
ventured to propagate it in this country was Dr. 
Gabriel Goodman, bishop of Gloucester, a man of 
a versatile temper, and the.author of a book entitled, 
" The Fall of Man, or the Corruption of Nature 
proved by Natural Reason." Lond. 1616 and 1624, 
4to. He was plundered in the Usurpation, torned 
Roman Catholic, and died in obscurity.— See Athen 
Oxon. vol. i. p. 727.— H. 

t Unless an age too late, or cold 

Climate, or years damp my intended wing. 

Par. Lost, b. is. 1. 44.— J. B. 



MILTON. 



39 



Influence of the seasons, and believe his faculties 
to be vigorous only half the year. 

His submission to the seasons was at least 
more reasonable than his dread of decaying na- 
ture, or a frigid zone, for general causes must 
operate uniformly in a general abatement of 
mental power ; if less could be performed by the 
writer, less likewise would content the judges 
of his work. Among this lagging race of 
frosty grovellers, he might still have risen into 
eminence by producing something which they 
should not willingly let die. However inferior 
to the heroes who were born in better ages, he 
might still be great among his contemporaries, 
with the hope of growing every day greater in 
the dwindle of posterity. He might st'M be a 
giant among the pigmies, the one-eyed monarch 
of the blind. 

Of his artifices of study, or particular hours of 
composition, we have little account, and there 
was perhaps little to be told. Richardson, who 
seems to have been very diligent in his inquiries, 
but discovers always a wish to find Milton dis- 
criminated from other men, relates, "that he 
would sometimes lie awake whole nights, but 
not a verse could he make ; and on a sudden his 
poetical faculty would rush upon him with an 
impetus or oestrum, and his daughter was imme- 
diately called to secure what came. At other 
times he would dictate perhaps forty lines in a 
breath, and then reduce them to half the num- 
ber. ' ' 

These bursts of light, and involutions of dark- 
ness, these transient and involuntary excursions 
and retrocessions of invention, having some ap- 
pearance of deviation from the common train of 
nature, are eagerly caught by the lovers of a 
wonder. Yet something of tins inequality hap- 
pens to every man in every mode of exertion, 
manual or mental. The mechanic cannot^handle 
his hammer and his file at all times with equal 
dexterity; there are hours, he knows not why, 
when his hand is out. By Mr. Richardson's re- 
lation, casually conveyed, much regard cannot 
be claimed. That in his intellectual hour Milton 
called for his daughter " to secure what came," 
may be questioned ; for unluckily it happens to 
be known that his daughters were never taught 
to write ; nor would he have been obliged, as is 
universally confessed, to have' employed any 
casual visitor in disburthening his memory, if 
his daughter could have performed the office. 

The story of reducing his exuberance has been 
told of other authors, and, though doubtless true 
of every fertile and copious mind, seems to have 
been gratuitously transferred to Milton. 

What he has told us, and we cannot now 
know more, is, that he composed much of this 
poem in the night and morning, I suppose before 
his mind was disturbed with common business ; 
and that he poured out with great fluency his , 



unpremeditated verse. Versification, free, like 
his, from the distresses of rhyme, must, by a 
work so long, be made prompt and habitual ; 
and, when his thoughts were once adjusted, the 
words would come at his command. 

At what particular times of his life the parts 
of his work were written, cannot often be 
known. The beginning of the third book shows 
that he had lost his sight ; and the introduction 
to the seventh, that the return of the King had 
clouded him with discountenance, and that he 
was offended by the licentious festivity of th8 
Restoration. There are no other internal notes 
of time. Milton, being now cleared from all 
effects of his disloyalty, had nothing required 
from him but the common duty of living in 
quiet, to be rewarded with the common right of 
protection ; but this, which, when he skulked 
from the approach of his King, was perhaps 
more than he hoped, seems not to have satisfied 
him ; for no sooner is he safe, than he finds him- 
self in danger, " fallen on evil days and evil 
tongues, and with darkness and with danger 
compass'd round." This darkness, had his 
eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly de- 
served compassion ; but to add the mention of 
danger was ungrateful and unjust. He was 
fallen indeed on evil days; the time was come in 
which regicides could no longer boast their 
wickedness. But of evil tongues for Milton to 
complain required impudence at least equal to 
his other powers ; Milton, whose warmest ad- 
vocates must allow that he never spared any as- 
perity of reproach, or brutality of insolence. 

But the charge itself seems to be false ; for it 
would be hard to recollect any reproach cast 
upon him, either serious or ludicrous, through 
the whole remaining part of his life. He pur- 
sued his studies, or his amusements, without 
persecution, molestation, or insult. Such is 
the reverence paid to great abilities, however 
misused : they who contemplated in Milton the 
scholar and the wit were contented to forget tho 
reviler of his King. 

When the plague (1665) raged in London, 
Milton took refuge at Chalfont, in Bucks j 
where El wood, who had taken the house for 
him, first saw a complete copy of " Paradise 
Lost ;" and, having perused it, said to him, 
" Thou hast said a great deal upon " Paradise 
Lost;" what hast thou to say upon Paradise 
found ?" 

Next year, when the danger of infection had 
ceased, he returned to Bunhill-fields, and de- 
signed the publication of his poem. A license 
was necessary, and he could expect no great 
kindness from a chaplain of the Archbishop 
of Canterbury. He seems, however, to have 
been treated with tenderness ; for though objec- 
tions were made to particular passages, and 
among them to the simile of the sun eclipsed in 
the first book, yet the license was granted ; and 



40 



MILTON. 



he sold his copy, April 27, 1667, to Samuel 
Simmons, for an immediate payment of five 
pounds, with a stipulation to receive five pounds 
more when thirteen hundred should he sold of 
the first edition ; and again, five pounds after i 
the sale of the same number of the second edi- 
tion ; and another five pounds after the same 
sale of the third. None of the three editions 
were to he extended heyond fifteen hundred 
Copies. 

The first edition was of ten hooks, in a small 
quarto. The titles were varied from year to 
year : and an advertisement and the arguments 
of the books were omitted in some copies, and 
inserted in others. 

The sale gave him in two years a right to his 
Second payment, for which the receipt was 
signed April 26, 1669. The second edition was 
not given till 1674; it was printed in small oc- 
tavo ; and the number of books was increased 
to twelve, hy a division of the seventh and 
twelfth ; and some other small improvements 
were made. The third edition was published 
in 1678 ; and the widow, to whom the copy was 
then to devolve, sold all her claims to Simmons 
for eight pounds, according to her receipt given i 
Dec. 21, 1680. Simmons had already agreed to ' 
transfer the whole right to Brabazon Aylmer, 
fcr twenty-five pounds ; and Aylmer sold to 
Jacob Tonson half, August 17, 1683, and half, 
March 24, 1690, at a price considerably enlarged. 
In the history of " Paradise Lost" a de- 
duction thus minute will rather gratify than 
fatigue. 

The slow sale and tardy reputation of this 
poem have been always mentioned as evidences 
of neglected merit, and of the uncertainty of 
literary fame ; and inquiries have heen made, 
and conjectures offered, ahout the causes of its 
long obscurity and late reception. But has the 
case been truly stated ? Have not lamentation 
and wonder been lavished on an evil that was 
never felt ? 

That in the reigns of Charles and James, the 
" Paradise Lost" received no puhlic acclama- 
tions, is readily confessed. Wit and literature 
were on the side of the court : and who that 
solicited favour or fashion would venture to 
praise the defender of the regicides? All that 
he himself could think his due, from evil tongues 
in evil days, was that reverential silence which 
Was gtnerously preserved. But it cannot he 
inferred, that his poem was not read, or not, 
however unwillingly, admired. 

The sale, if it be considered, will justify the 
puhlic. Those who have no power to judge of 
past times hut hy their own, should always 
doubt their conclusions. The call for hooks was 
not in Milton's age what it is in the present. 
To read was not then a general amusement ; 
neither traders, nor often gentlemen, thought 
themselves disgraced by ignorance. The women 



had not then aspired to literature, nor was every 
bouse supplied with a closet of knowledge. 
Those, indeed, who professed learning, were no 
less learned than at any other time ; but of that 
middle race of students who read for pleasure or 
accomplishment, and who huy the numerous 
products of modern typography, the number 
was then comparatively small. To prove the 
paucity of readers, it may be sufficient to re- 
mark, that the nation had heen satisfied from 
1623 to 1664, that is, forty-one years, with only 
two editions of the works of Shakspeare, which 
probably did not together make one thousand 
copies. 

The sale of thirteen hundred copies in two 
years, in opposition to so much recent enmity, 
and to a style of versification new to all, and dis- 
gusting to many, was an uncommon example of 
the prevalence cf genius. The demand did not 
immediately increase ; for many more readers 
than were supplied at first the nation did not 
afford. Only three thousand were sold in eleven 
years ; for it forced its way without assistance ; 
its admirers did not dare to publish their opin- 
ion ; and the opportunities now given of attract- 
ing notice by advertisements were then very 
few; the means of proclaiming the publication 
of new books have been produced by that general 
literature which now pervades the nation 
through all its ranks. 

But the reputation and price of the copy still 
advanced, till the Revolution put an end to the 
secrecy of love, and " Paradise Lost" broke into 
open view with sufficient security of kind re- 
ception. 

Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with 
what temper Milton surveyed the silent progress 
of his work, and marked its reputation stealing 
its way in a kind of subterraneous current 
through fear and silence. I cannot but conceive 
him calm and confident, little disappointed, not 
at all dejected, relying on his own merit with 
steady consciousness, and waiting without im- 
patience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the im- 
partiality of a future generation. 

In the mean time he continued his studies, 
and supplied the want of sight hy a very odd 
expedient, of which Philips gives the following 
account : 

Mr. Philips tells us, " that though our Author 
had daily about him one or other to read, some 
persons of man's estate, who, of their own accord, 
greedily catch ed at the opportunity of being his 
readers, that they might as well reap the benefit 
of what they read to him, as ohlige him hy the 
henefit of their reading ; and others of younget 
years were sent hy their parents to the same 
end ; yet excusing only the daughter by reason 
of her bodily infirmity and difficult utterance or 
speech (which, to say truth, I doubt was the 
principal cause of excusing her) the other two 
were condemned to the performance of reading 



MILTON. 



41 



and exactly pronouncing ot all the languages of 
whatever book he should, at one time or other, 
think fit to peruse; viz. the Hebrew (and, 1 
think, the Syriac,) the Greek, the Latin, the 
Italian, Spanish, and French. All which sorts 
of books to be confined to read, without under- 
standing one word, must needs be a trial of pa- 
tience almost beyond endurance. Yet it was 
endured by both for a long time, though the 
irksomeness of this employment could not be 
always concealed, but broke out more and more 
into expressions of uneasiness ; so that at length 
they were all, even the eldest also, sent out 
to learn some curious and ingenious sorts of 
manufacture, that are proper for women to 
learn, particularly embroideries in gold or sil- 
ver." 

In the scene of misery which this mode of in- 
tellectual labour sets before our eyes, it is hard to 
determine whether the daughters or the father 
are most to be lamented. A language not un- 
derstood can never be so read as to give pleasure, 
and very seldom so as to convey meaning. If 
few men would have had resolution to write 
books with such embarrassments, few likewise 
would have wanted ability to find some better 
expedient. 

Three years after his " Paradise Lost" (1667,) 
he published his " History of England," com- 
prising the whole fable of Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth, and continued to the Norman Invasion. 
Why he should have given the first part, which 
he seems not to believe, and which is universally 
rejected, it is difficult to conjecture. The style 
is harsh ;' but it has something of rougli vigour, 
which perhaps may often strike, though it can- 
not please. 

On this history the licenser again fixed his 
claws, and before he would transmit it to the 
press tore out several parts. Some censures of 
the Saxon monks were taken away, lesf they 
should be applied to the modern clergy ; and a 
character of the Long Parliament and Assembly 
of Divines was excluded ; of which the author 
gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesey, and which, 
being afterwards published, has been since in- 
serted in its proper place. 

The same year were printed, " Paradise Re- 
gained" and " Samson Agonistes," a tragedy 
written in imitation of the ancients, and never 
designed by the author for the stage. As these 
poems were published by another bookseller, it 
has been asked whether Simmons was discour- 
aged from receiving them by the slow sale of the 
former. Why a writer changed his bookseller 
a hundred years ago, I am far from hoping to 
discover. Certainly, he, who in two years sells 
thirteen hundred copies of a volume in quarto, 
bought for two payments of five pounds each, 
has no reason to repent his purchase. 

When Milton showed " Paradise Regained" 
to El wood, " This," said he, "is owing to you; 



for you put it in my head uy tne question you 
put to me at Chalfont, which otherwise I had 
not thought of." 

His last poetical offspring was his favourite. 

! He could not, as Elwood relates, endure to hear 

j " Paradise Lost" preferred to " Paradise Re- 
gained." Many causes may vitiate a writer's 
judgment of his own works. On that which 
has cost him much labour he sets a high value, 
because he is unwilling to think that he has been 

1 diligent in vain ; what has been produced with- 

| out toilsome efforts is considered with delight, as 
a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile inven- 

' tion ; and the last work, whatever it be, has ne- 
cessarily most of the grace of novelty. Milton, 
however it happened, had this prejudice, and 
had it to himself. 

To that multiplicity of attainments, and ex- 
tent of comprehension, that entitled this great 
author to our veneration, may be added a kind 
of humble dignity, which did not disdain the 
meanest services to literature. The epic poet, 

; . the controvertist, the politician, having already 

1 descended to accommodate children with a 
book of rudiments, now, in the last years of 
his life, composed a book of logic for the ini- 
tiation of students in philosophy ; and pub- 
lished (1672,) Artis Logicce plenior Institutio 
ad Petri Rami Methodum concinnata ; that is 
" A new Scheme of Logic, according to the 
Method of Ramus." I know not whether, even 
in this book, he did not intend an act of hostility 
against the Universities ; for Ramus was one of 
the first oppugners of the old philosophy, who 
disturbed with innovations the quiet of the 
schools. 

His polemical disposition again revived. He 
had now been safe so long, that he forgot his 
fears, and published a " Treatise of true Reli- 
gion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the best 
Means to prevent the Growth of Popery." 

But this little tract is modestly written, with 
respectful mention of the Church of England, 
and an appeal to the Thirty-nine Articles. His 
principle of toleration is, agreement in the suf- 
ficiency of the Scriptures ; and he extends it to 
all who, whatever their opinions are, profess to 
derive them from the Sacred Books. The papists 
appeal to other testimonies, and are therefore, in 

j his opinion, not to be permitted the liberty of 
either public or private worship ; for though 

: they plead conscience, " we have no warrant," 
he says, " to regard conscience which is not 
grounded in Scripture." 

Those who are not convinced by his reasons, 

! may be perhaps delighted with his wit. The 
term Roman Catholic is, he says, " one of the 
Pope's bulls ; it is particular universal, or ca- 
tholic schismatic." 

He has, however, something better. As the 
best preservative against popery, he recommends 
the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, a duty, 



42 



MILTON 



from which he warns the busy part of mankind 
not to think themselves excused. 

He now reprinted his juvenile poems, with 
some additions. 

In the last year of his life he sent to the press, 
seeming to take delight in publication, a collec- 
tion of Familiar Epistles in Latin ; to which, 
being too few to make a volume, he added some 
academical exercises, which perhaps he perused 
with pleasure, as they recalled to his memory 
the da; s of youth, but for which nothing but 
veneration for his name could now procure a 
reader. 

When he had attained his sixty-sixth year, the 
gout, with which he had been long tormented, 
prevailed over the enfeebled powers of nature. 
He died by a quiet and silent expiration, about 
the iOth of November, 1674, at his house in 
Bunhill-fields ; and was buried next his father 
in the chancel of St. Giles, at Cripplegate. His 
funeral was very splendidly and numerously at- 
tended. 

Upon his grave there is supposed to have been 
no memorial ; but in our time a monument has 
been erected in Westminster Abbey " To the 
Author of Paradise Lost," by Mr. Benson, 
who has in the inscription bestoAved more words 
upon himself than upon Milton. 

When the inscription for the monument of 
Philips, in which he was said to be soli Miltono 
secundus, was exhibited to Dr. Sprat, then dean 
of Westminster, he refused to admit it ; the 
name of Milton was, in his opinion, too detest- 
able to be read on the wall of a building dedicat- 
ed to devotion. Atterbury, who succeeded him, 
being author of the inscription, permitted its re- 
ception. " And such has been the change of 
public opinion," said Dr. Gregory, from whom 
I heard this^ account, " that I have seen erected 
in the church a statue of that man, whose name 
1 once knew considered as a pollution of its 
walls." 

Milton has the reputation of having been in 
his youth eminently beautiful, so as to have 
been called the lady of his college. His hair, 
which was of a light brown, parted at the fore- 
top, and hung down upon his shoulders, accord- 
ing to the picture which he has given of Adam. 
Pie was, however, not of the heroic stature, but 
father below the middle size, according to Mr. 
Richardson, who mentions him as having nar- 
rowly escaped from being short and thick. Pie 
was vigorous and active, and delighted in the 
exercise of the sword, in which he is related to 
have been eminently skilful. His weapon was, 
I believe, not the rapier, but the back-sword, of 
which he recommends the vise in his book on 
education. 

His eyes are said never to have been bright ; 
but, if he was a dexterous fencer, they must 
have been once quick. 

His domestic habits, so far as they are known, 
were those of a severe student. He drank little 



strong drink of any kind, and fed without excess 
in quantity, and in his earlier years without deli- 
cacy of choice. In his youth lie studied late at 
night; but afterwards changed his hours, and 
rested in bed from nine to four in the summer, 
and five in the winter. The course of his day 
was best known after he was blind. When he first 
rose, he heard a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, 
and then studied till twelve ; then took some 
exercise for an hour ; then dined, then played 
on the organ, and sang, or heard another sing, 
then studied till six ; then entertained his visit- 
ors till eight ; then supped, and, after a pipe of 
tobacco and a glass of water, went to bed. 

So is his life described : but this even tenor ap- 
pears attainable only in colleges. He that lives 
in the world will sometimes have the succession 
of his practice broken and confused. Visitors, 
of whom Milton is represented to have had great 
numbers, will come and stay unseasonably ; bu- 
siness, of which every man has some, must be 
done when others will do it. 

When he did not care to rise early, he had 
something read to him by his bedside ; perhaps 
at this time his daughters were employed. He 
composed much in the morning, and dictated in 
the day, sitting obliquely in an elbow-chair, with 
his leg thrown over the arm. 

Fortune appears not to have had much of his 
care. In the civil wars he lent his personal es- 
tate to the parliament ; but when after the con- 
test was decided, he solicited repayment, he met 
not only with neglect, but sharp rebuke ; and, 
having tired both himself and his friends, was 
given up to poverty and hopeless indignation, 
till he showed how able he was to do gi-eater 
service. He was then made Latin secretary, 
with two hundred pounds a year ; and had a 
thousand pounds for his " Defence of the Peo- 
ple." His widow, who, after his death, retir- 
ed to Namptwich, in Cheshire, and died about 
1729, is said to have reported that he lost two 
thousand pounds by entrusting it to a scrivener ; 
and that, in the general depredation upon the 
church, he had grasped an estate of about sixty 
pounds a year belonging to Westminster Abbey, 
which, like other sharers of the plunder of rebel- 
lion, he was afterwards obliged to return. Two 
thousand pounds, which he had placed in the 
Excise-office, were also lost. There is yet no 
reason to believe that he was ever reduced to 
indigence. His wants, being few, were com- 
petently supplied. He sold his library before 
his death, and left his family fifteen hundred 
pounds, on which his widow laid hold and only 
gave one hundred to each of his daughters. 

His literature was unquestionably great. He 
read all the languages which are considered 
either as learned or polite ; Hebrew with its 
two dialects, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, 
and Spanish. In Latin his skill was such as 
places him in the first rank of writers and 
critics ; and he appears to have cultivated Italian 



MILTON. 



43 



with uncommon diligence. The books in which 
his daughter, who used to read to him, repre- 
sented him as most delighting, after Homer, 
which he could almost repeat, were Ovid's Me- 
tamorphoses and Euripides. His Euripides is 
by Mr. Cradock's kindness, now in my hands : 
the margin is sometimes noted ; but I have 
found nothing remarkable. 

Of the English poets he set most value upon 
Spenser, Shakspeare, and Cowley. Spenser 
was apparently his favourite; Shakspeare he 
may easily be supposed to like, with every other 
skilful reader ; but I should not have expected 
that Cowley, whose ideas of excellence were so 
different from his own, would have had much 
of his approbation. His character of Dryden, 
who sometimes visited him, was, that he was 
a good rhymist, but no poet. • 

His theological opinions are said to have been 
first Calvinistical ; and afterwards, perhaps 
when he began to hate the presbyterians, to 
have tended towards Arminianism. In the 
mixed questions of theology and government 
he never thinks that he can recede far enough 
from popery or prelacy : but what Eaudius says 
of Erasmus seems applicable to him, magishdbuft 
quodfugeret, quam quod sequeretur. He had de- 
termined rather what to condemn, than what 
to approve. He has not associated himself with 
any denomination of protestants ; we know 
rather what he was not, than what he was. 
He was not of the church of Rome; he was 
not of the church of England. 

To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, 
of which the rewards are distant, and which is 
animated only by faith and hope, wiE glide by 
degrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated 
and reimpressed by external ordinances, by 
stated calls to worship, and the salutary influ- 
ence of example. Milton, who appears to have 
had full conviction of the truth of Christianity, 
and to have regarded the Holy Scriptures with 
the profoundest veneration, and to have been 
untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion, 
and to have lived in a confirmed belief of the 
immediate and occasional agency of Providence, 
yet grew old without any visible worship. In 
the distribution of his hours, there was no 
hour of prayer, either solitary, or with his 
household ; omitting public prayers, he omitted 
all. 

Of this omission the reason has been sought 
upon a supposition which ought never to be 
made, that men live with their own approba- 
tion, and justify their conduct to themselves. 
Prayer certainly was not thought superfluous 
by him, who represents our first parents as 
praying acceptably in the state of innocence, 
and efficaciously after their fell. That he lived 
without prayer can hardly be affirmed ; his 
studies and meditations were an habitual 
prayer. The neglect of it in his family was 



probably a fault for which he condemned him- 
self, and which he intended to correct, but that 
death, as too often happens, intercepted his 
reformation. 

His political notions were those of an acri- 
monious and surly republican, for which it is 
not known that he gave any better reason than 
that " a popular government was the most fru- 
gal ; for the trappings of a monarchy would set 
up an ordinary commonwealth. " It is surely 
yery shallow policy that supposes money to be 
the chief good : and even this, without consid- 
ering that the support and expense of a court 
is, for the most part, only a particular kind 
of traffic, for which money is circulated with- 
out any national impoverishment. 

Milton's republicanism was, I am afraid, 
founded in an envious hatred of greatness, and 
a sullen desire of independence ; in petulance 
I impatient of control, and pride disdainful of su- 
i periority. He hated monarchs in the state, 
I and prelates in the church ; for he hated all 
j whom he was required to obey. It is to be 
j suspected, that his predominant desire was to 
j destroy rather than establish, and that he felt 
j not so much the love of liberty as repugnance 
' to authority. 

It has been observed, that they who most 
! loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally 
j grant it. What we know of Milton's character, 
in domestic relations, is, that he was severe and 
arbitrary. His family consisted of women ; 
and there appears in his books something like a 
Turkish contempt of females, as subordinate 
and inferior beings. That his own daughters 
might not break the ranks, he suffered them to 
be depressed by a mean and penurious education. 
He thought women made only for obedience, 
and man only for rebellion. 

Of his family some account may be expected. 
His sister first married to Mr. Philips, after- 
wards married to Mr. Agar, a friend of her 
first husband, who succeeded him in the 
Crown-office. She had, by her first husband, 
Edward and John, the two nephews whom 
Milton educated; and, by her second, two 
daughters. 

His brother, Sir Christopher, had two daugh- 
ters, Mary, and Catharine;* and a son, 
Thomas, who succeeded Agar in the Crown- 



* Both these persons were living at Hollo way, 
about the year 1734, and at that time possessed such 
a degree of heakh and strength as enabled them on 
Sundays and prayer-days to walk a mile up a steep 
hill to Highgate Chapel. One of them was ninety- 
two at the time of her death. Their parentage was 
known to few, and their names were corrupted into 
Melton. Ey the Crown-office, mentioned in the two 
last paragraphs, we are to understand the Ci'owa- 
office of the Court of Chancery. — H. 



44 



M ILTON. 



office, and left a daughter living, in 1749, in 
Grosvenor-street. 

Milton had children only by his first wife ; 
Anne, Mary, and Deborah. Anne, though de- 
formed, married a master-builder, and died 
of her first child. Mary died single. De- 
borah married Abraham Clark, a weaver in 
Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years, to 
August 1727. This is the daughter of whom 
public mention has been made. She could 
repeat the first lines of Homer, the Metamor- 
phoses, and some of Euripides, by having of- 
ten read them. Yet here incredulity is ready 
to make a stand. Many repetitions are neces- 
sary to fix in the memory lines not understood ; 
and why should Milton wish or want to hear 
them so often ? These lines were at the begin- 
ning of the poems. Of a book written in a 
language not understood, the beginning raises 
no more attention than the end ; and as those 
that understand it know commonly the begin- 
ning best, its rehearsal will seldom be necessary. 
It is not likely that Milton required any passage 
to be so much repeated as that his daughter 
could learn it ; nor likely that he desired the 
initial lines to be read at Till; nor that the 
daughter, weary of the drudgery of pronouncing 
unideal sounds, would voluntarily commit them 
to memory. 

To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, 
and promised some establishment, but died soon 
after. Queen Caroline sent her fifty guineas. 
She had seven sons and three daughters ; but 
none of them had any children, except her son 
Caleb and her daughter Elizabeth. Caleb went 
to Fort St. George, in the East Indies, and had 
two sons, of whom nothing is now known. Eli- 
zabeth married Thomas Foster, a weaver in Spit- 
alfields ; and had seven children, who all died. 
She kept a petty grocer's or chandler's shop, first 
at Holloway, and afterwards in Cock-lane near 
Shoreditch Church. She knew little of her 
grandfather, and that little was not good. She 
told of his harshness to his daughters, and his re- 
fusal to have them taught to write; and, in 
opposition to other accounts, represented him as 
delicate, though temperate, in his diet. 

In 1750, April 4, " Comus" was played for 
her benefit. She had so little acquaintance with 
diversion or gayety, that she did not know what 
was intended when a benefit was offered her. 
The profits of the night were only one hundred 
and thirty pounds, though Dr. Newton brought 
a large contribution ; and twenty pounds were 
given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised as 
often as he is named. Of this sum, one hundred 
pounds were placed in the stocks, after some de- 
bate between her and her husband in whose 
name it should be entered ; and the rest aug- 
mented their little stock, with which they re- 
moved to Islington. This was the greatest be- 
nefaction that " Paradise Lost" ever px-ocured 



the author's descendants ; and to this he who 
has now attempted to relate his life had the hon- 
our of contributing a prologue. 

In the examination of Milton's poetical works, 
I shall pay so much regard to time as to begin 
with his juvenile productions. For his early 
pieces he seems so have had a degree of fondness 
not very laudable ; what he has once written he 
resolves to preserve, and gives to the public an 
unfinished poem, which he broke off because he 
was " nothing satisfied with what he had done," 
supposing his readers less nice than himself. 
These preludes to his future labours are in Ita- 
lian, Latin, and English. Of the Italian I can- 
nofc pretend to speak as a critic ; but I have heard 
them commended by a man well qualified to de- 
cide their merit. The Latin pieces are lusciously 
elegant ; but the delight which they afford is 
rather by the exquisite imitation of the ancient 
writers, by the purity of the diction, and the 
harmony of the numbers, than by any power of 
invention, or vigour of sentiment. They are 
not all of equal value ; the elegies excel the odes ; 
and some of the exercises on Gunpowder Trea- 
son might have been spared. 

The English poems, though they make no 
promises of " Paradise Lost,"* have this evi- 
dence of genius, that they have a cast original 
and unborrowed. But their peculiarity is not 
excellence; if th<w differ from the verses of 
others, they differ for the worse; for they are 
too often distinguished by repulsive harshness ; 
the combinations of words are new, but they are 
not pleasing ; the rhymes and epithets seem to 
be laboriously sought, and violently applied. 

That in the early parts of his life he wrote 
with much care appears from his manuscripts, 
happily preserved at Cambridge, in which many 
of his smaller works are found as they were first 
written, with the subsequent corrections. Such 
relics show how excellence is acquired ; what we 
hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first 
to do with diligence. 

Those who admire the beauties of this great 
poet sometimes force their own judgment into 
false approbation of his little pieces, and prevail 
upon themselves to think that admirable which 
is only singular. All that short compositions 
can commonly attain is neatness and elegance. 
Milton never learned the art of doing little 
things with grace ; he overlooked the milder ex- 
cellence of suavity and softness ; he was a lion 
that had no skill in dangling the kid. 

One of the poems on which much praise has 
been bestowed, is " Lycidas;" of which the 
diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the 
numbers unpieasing. What beauty there is we 



* With the exception of " Comus," in which, Dr. 
Johnson afterwards says, may very plainly be dis- 
covered the dawn of twilight of* " Paradise liost."-- C» 



MILTON. 



45 



must therefore seek in the sentiments and im- f 
ages. It is not to be considered as the effusion 
of real passion ; for passion runs not after re- 
mote allusions and obscure opinions. Passion 
plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor 
calls upon Arethuse and- Mincius, nor tells of 
rough satyrs and " fauns with cloven heel." 
Where there is leisure for fiction there is little 
grief. 

In this poem there is no nature, for there is 
no truth ; there is no art, for there is nothing 
new. Its form is that of a pastoral ; easy, vul- 
gar, and therefore disgusting ; whatever images 
it can supply are long ago exhausted ; and its in- 
herent improbability always forces dissatisfac- 
tion on the mind. When Cowley tells of Her- 
vey, that they studied together, it is easy to 
suppose how much he must miss the companion 
of his labours, and the partner of his discoveries ; 
but what image of tenderness can be excited by 
these lines ? 

We drove a field, and both together heard 
What time the grey fly ■winds her sultry horn, 
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews at night." 

We know that they never drove a field, and 
that they had no flocks to batten ; and though it 
be allowed that the representation may be alle- 
gorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and 
remote, that it is never sought, because it cannot 
be known when it is found. 

Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, 
appear the heathen deities ; Jove and Phcebus, 
Neptune and iEolus, with a long train of myth- 
ological imagery, such as a college easily sup- 
plies. Nothing can less display knowledge, or 
less exercise invention, than to tell how a shep- 
herd has lost his companion, and must now feed 
his flocks alone, without any judge of his skill 
in piping ; and how one god asks another god 
what has become of Lycidas, and how neither 
god can tell. He who thus grieves will excite 
no sympathy ; he who thus praises will confer 
no honour. 

This poem has yet a grosser fault. With 
these trifling fictions are mingled the most awful 
and sacred truths, such as ought never to be pol- 
luted with such irreverent combinations. The 
shepherd likewise is now a feeder of sheep, and 



afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, a superin- j 
tendent of a Christian flock. Such equivocations 
are always unskilful ; but here they are indecent, 
and at least approach to impiety, of which, how- 
ever, I believe the writer not to have been con- 
scious. 

Such is the power of reputation justly ac- 
quired, that its blaze drives away the eye from 
nice examination. Surely no man could have 
fancied that he read " Lycidas" with pleasure, 
had he not known the Author. 

Of the two pieces, " L' Allegro" and " II Pen- 
seroso," I believe opinion is uniform ; every man 



that reads them, reads them with pleasure. The 
Author's design is not, what Theobald has re- 
marked, merely to show how objects derive their 
colours from the mind, by representing the oper- 
ation of the same things upon the gay and the 
melancholy temper, or upon the same man as he 
is differently disposed: but rather how, among 
the successive variety of appearances, every dis- 
position of mind takes hold on those by which it 
may be gratified. 

The cheerful man hears the lark in the morn- 
ing ; the pensive man hears the nightingale in 
the evening. The cheerful man sees the cock 
sti'ut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the 
wood ; then walks, not unseen, to observe the 
gkny of the rising sun, or listen to the singing 
milk-maid, and view the labours of the plough- 
man and the mower ; then casts his eyes about 
him over scenes of smiling plenty, and looks up 
to the distant tower, the residence of some fair 
inhabitant ; thus he pursues real gayety through 
a day of labour or of play, and delights himself 
at night with the fanciful narratives of super- 
stitious ignorance. 

The pensive man, at one time, walks unseen 
to muse at midnight ; and at another hears the 
sullen curfew. If the weather drives him home, 
he sits in a room lighted only by glowing em- 
bers ; or by a lonely lamp out watches the north 
star, to discover the habitation of separate souls, 
and varies the shades of meditation, by contem- 
plating the magnificent or pathetic scenes of tra- 
gic and epic poetry. When the morning comes, 
a morning gloomy with rain and wind, he walks 
into the dark trackless woods,* falls asleep by 
some murmuring water, and with melancholy 
enthusiasm expects some dream of prognostica- 
tion, or some music played by aerial performers. 
Both Mirth and Melancholy are solitary, silent 
inhabitants of the breast, that neither receive nor 
transmit communication : no mention is there- 
fore made of a philosophical friend, or a pleasant 
companion. The seriousness does not arise from 
any participation of calamity, nor the gayety 
from the pleasures of the bottle. 

The man of cheerfulness, having exhausted the 
country, tries what towered cities will afford, 
and mingles with scenes of splendour, gay as- 
semblies, and nuptial festivities ; but he mingles 
a mere spectator, as, when the learned comedies 



of Jonson, or the wild dramas of Shakspeare, 
are exhibited, he attends the theatre. 

The pensive man never loses himself in 
crowds, but walks the cloister, or frequents the 
cathedral. Milton probably had not yet for- 
saken the church. 



* Here, as Warton justly observes, Johnson " has 
confounded his description." The melancholy man 
does not go out while it rains, hut waits till 
the sun begins to fling 



Mis flaming beams.- 



J. B* 



46 



MILTON. 



Both his characters delight in music ; but he 
6eems to think that cheerful notes would have 
obtained from Pluto a complete dismission of 
Eurydice, of whom solemn sounds only procured 
a conditional release. 

For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no 
provision ; but Melancholy he conducts with 
great dignity to the close of life. His cheerful- 
ness is without levity, and his pensiveness with- 
out asperity. 

Through these two poems the images are pro- 
perly selected and nicely distinguished ; but the 
colours of the diction seem not sufficiently dis- 
criminated. I know not whether characters are 
kept sufficiently apart. No mirth can, indeed, be 
found in his melancholy ; but I am afraid that 
I always meet some melancholy in his mirth. 
They are two noble efforts of imagination.* 

The greatest of his juvenile performances is 
the mask of " Comus," in which may very 
plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of 
"Paradise Lost." Milton appeal's to have 
formed very early that system of diction, and 
mode of verse, which his maturer judgment ap- 
proved, and from which he never endeavoured 
nor desired to deviate. 

Nor does " Comus" afford only a specimen 
of his language ; it exhibits likewise his power 
of description and his vigour of sentiment, em- 
ployed in the praise and defence of virtue. A 
work more truly poetical is rarely found ; allu- 
sions, images, and descriptive epithets, embellish 
almost every period with lavish decoration. As 
a series of lines, therefore, it may be considered 
as worthy of all the admiration with which the 
votaries have received it. 

As a drama it is deficient. The action is not 
probable. A mask, in those parts where super- 
natural intervention is admitted, must indeed 
be given up to all the freaks of imagination ; 
but, so far as the action is merely human, it 
ought to be reasonable, which can hardly be 
eaid of the conduct of the two brothers ; who, 
when their sister sinks with fatigue in a path- 
less wilderness, wander both away together in 
search of berries too far to find their way back, 
and leave a helpless lady to all the sadness and 
danger of solitude. This, however, is a defect 
overbalanced by its convenience. 



* Mr. Warton intimates (and there can be little 
doubt of the truth of his conjecture) that Milton 
borrowed many of the images in these two fine 
poems from " Barton's Anatomy of Melancholy," a 
book published in 1621, and at sundry times since, 
abounding in learning, curious information, and 
pleasantry. Mr. Warton says, that Milton appears 
to have been an attentive reader thereof; and to 
this assertion I add, of my own knowledge, that 
it was a book that Dr. Johnson frequently resorted 
to, as many others have done, for amusement after 
the fatigue of study. — H. 



What deserves more reprehension is, that the 



: prologue spoken in the wild wood by the atten- 
I dant Spirit is addressed to the audience ; a 
mode of communication so contrary to the na- 
ture of dramatic representation, that no prece- 
dents can support it. 

The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an ob- 
jection that may be. made to almost all the fol- 
lowing speeches ; they have not the sprightliness 
of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, 
but seem rather declamations deliberately com- 
posed, and formally repeated on a moral ques- 
tion. The auditor therefore listens as to a 
lecture, without passion, without anxiety. 

The song of Comus has airiness and jollity; 
but what may recommend Milton's morals as 
well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure 
are so general, that they excite no distinct 
images of corrupt enjoyment, and take no dan- 
gerous hold on the fancy. 

The following soliloquies of Comus and the 
Lady are elegant, but tedious. The song must 
owe much to the voice if it ever can delight. 
At last the brothers enter with too much tran- 
quillity ; and, when they have feared lest their 
sister should be in danger, and hoped that she is 
not in danger, the elder makes a speech in 
praise of chastity, and the younger finds how 
fine it is to be a philosopher. 

Then descends the Spirit in form of a shep- 
herd ; and the brother, instead of being in haste 
to ask his help, praises his singing, and inquires 
his business in that place. It is remarkable, 
that at this interview the brother is taken with 
a short fit of rhyming. The Spirit relates that 
the Lady is in the power of Comus ; the brother 
moralizes again; and the Spirit makes a long 
narration, of no use because it is false, and 
therefore unsuitable to a good being. 

In all these parts the language is poetical, and 
the sentiments are generous; but there is some- 
thing wanting to allure attention. 

The dispute between the Lady and Comus is 
the most animated and affecting scene of the 
drama, and wants nothing but a brisker recipro- 
cation of objections and replies to invite atten- 
tion and detain it. 

The songs are vigorous and full of imagery ; 
but they are harsh in their diction, and not very 
musical in their numbers. 

Throughout the whole the figures are too 
bold, and the language too luxuriant for dia- 
logue. It is a drama in the epic style, inelegant- 
ly splendid, and tediously instructive. 

The Sonnets were written in different parts 
of Milton's life, upon different occasions. They 
deserve not any particular criticism; for of the 
best it can only be said, that they are not bad ; 
and perhaps only the eighth and the twenty- 
first are truly entitled to this slender commen- 
dation. The fabric of a sonnet, howeyer adapted 
to the Italian language, has never succeeded in 



MILTON. 



47 



ours, which, haying greater variety of termina- 
tion, requires the rhymes to be often changed. 
Those little pieces may be despatched without 
much anxiety ; a greater work calls for greater 
care. I am now to examine " Paradise Lost;" 
a poem, which, considered with respect to de- 
sign, may claim the first place, and with re- 
spect to performance, the second, among the pro- 
ductions of the human mind. 

By the general consent of critics, the first 
praise of genius is due to the writer of an epic 
poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the 
powers which are singly sufficient for other com- 
positions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure 
with truth, by calling imagination to the help of 
reason. Epic poetry undertakes to teach the 
most important truths by the most pleasing pre- 
cepts, and therefore relates some great event in 
the most affecting manner. History must sup- 
ply the writer with the rudiments of narration, 
which he must improve and exalt by a nobler 
art, must animate by dramatic energy, and di- 
versify by retrospection and anticipation ; mo- 
rality must teach him the exact bounds, and dif- 
ferent shades of vice and virtue ; from policy, 
and the practice of life, he has to learn the dis- 
criminations of character, and the tendency of 
the passions, either single or combined; and 
physiology must supply him with illustrations 
and images. To put these materials to poetical 
use, is required an imagination capable of paint- 
ing nature, and realizing fiction. Nor is he yet 
a poet till he has attained the whole extension of 
his language, distinguished all the delicacies of 
phrase, and all the colours of words, and learned 
to adjust their different sounds to all the varie- 
ties of metrical modulation. 

Bossu is of opinion, that the poet's first work 
is to find a moral, which his fable is afterwards 
to illustrate and establish. This seems to have 
been the process only of Milton ; the irforal of 
other poems is incidental and consequent ; in 
Milton's only it is essential and intrinsic. His 
purpose was the most useful and the most ardu- 
ous; " to vindicate the ways of God to man ;" 
to show the reasonableness of religion, and the 
necessity of obedience to the Divine law. 

To convey this moral there must be a fable, a 
narration artfully constructed, so as to excite 
curiosity, and surprise expectation. In this part 
of his work, Milton must be confessed to have 
equalled every other poet. He has involved in 
his account of the fall of man the events which 
preceded, and those that were to follow it : he 
has interwoven the whole system of theology 
with such propriety, that every part appears to 
be necessary ; and scarcely any recital is wished 
shorter for the sake of quickening the progress 
of the main action. 

The subject of an epic poem is naturally an 
event of great importance. That of Milton is 
not the destruction of a city, the conduct of a 



colony, or the foundation of an empire. His 
subject is the fate of worlds, the revolutions of 
heaven and of earth ; rebellion against the su- 
preme King, raised by the highest order of cre- 
ated beings ; the overthrow of their host, and 
the punishment of their crime ; the creation of 
a new race of reasonable creatures, their original 
happiness and innocence, their forfeiture of im- 
mortality, and their restoration to hope and 
peace. 

Great events can be hastened or retarded only 
by persons of elevated dignity. Before the 
greatness displayed in Milton's poem, all other 
greatness shrinks away. The weakest of his 
agents are the highest and noblest of human be- 
ings, the original parents of mankind ; with 
whose actions the elements consented : on whose 
rectitude, or deviation of will, depended the 
state of terrestrial nature, and the condition of 
all the future inhabitants of the globe. 

Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are 
such as it is irreverence to name on slight occa- 
sions. The rest were lower powers ; 

of which the least could wield 

Those elements, and arm him with the force 
Of all their regions ; 

powers, which only the control of Omnipotence 
restrains from laying creation waste, and filling 
the vast expanse of space with ruin and confu- 
sion. To display the motives and actions of be- 
ings thus superior, so far as human reason can 
examine them, or human imagination represent 
them, is the task which this mighty Poet has 
undertaken and performed. 

In the examination of epic poems, much spe- 
culation is commonly employed upon the cha- 
racters. The characters in the " Paradise Lost" 
which admit of examination are those of angels 
and of man ; of angels good and evil ; of man 
in his innocent and sinful state. 

Among the angels, the virtue of Raphael is 
mild and placid, of easy condescension and free 
communication ; that of Michael is regal and 
lofty, and, as may seem, attentive to the dignity 
of his own nature. Abdiel and Gabriel appear 
occasionally, and act as every incident requires ; 
the solitary fidelity of Abdiel is very amiably 
painted. 

Of the evil angels the characters are more di- 
versified. To Satan, as Addison observes, such 
sentiments are given as suit " the most exalted 
and most depraved being." Milton has been 
censured by Clarke* for the impiety which 
sometimes breaks from Satan's mouth ; for there 
are thoughts, as he justly remarks^ which no ob- 
servation of character can justify, because no 
good man would willingly permit them to pass, 
however transiently, through his own mind. 



* Author of the " Essay on Study." — Dr. J. 



48 



MILTON. 



To make Satan speak as a rebel, without any- 
such expressions as might taint the reader's im- 
agination, was indeed one of the great diffi- 
culties in Milton's undertaking ; and I cannot 
hut think that he has extricated himself with 
great happiness. There is in Satan's speeches 
little that can give pain to a pious ear. The lan- 
guage of rebellion cannot be the same with that 
of obedience. The malignity of Satan foams in 
haughtiness and obstinacy : but his expressions 
are commonly general, and no otherwise offen- 
sive than as they are wicked. 

The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are 
very judiciously discriminated in the first and 
second books ; and the ferocious character of 
Moloch appears, both in the battle and the coun- 
cil, with exact consistency. 

To Adam and to Eve are given, during their 
innocence, such sentiments as innocence can gene- 
rate and utter. Their love is pure benevolence 
and mutual veneration ; their repasts are with- 
out luxury, and their diligence without toil. 
Their addresses to their Maker have little more 
than the voice of admiration and gratitude. 
Fruition left them nothing to ask; and inno- 
cence left them nothing to fear. 

But with guilt enter distrust and discord, 
mutual accusation, and stubborn self-defence; 
they regard each other with alienated minds, 
and dread their Creator as the avenger of their 
transgression. At last they seek shelter in his 
mercy, soften to repentance, and melt in suppli- 
cation. Both before and after the fall, the su- 
periority of Adam is diligently sustained. 

Of the probable and the marvellous, two parts 
of a vulgar epic poem, which immerge the critic 
in deep consideration, the " Paradise Lost" re- 
quires little to be said. It contains the history 
of a miracle, of creation and redemption ; it dis- 
plays the power and the mercy of the Supreme 
Being : the probable therefore is marvellous, 
and the marvellous is probable. The substance 
of the narrative is truth ; and, as truth allows 
no choice, it is like necessity, superior to rale. 
To the accidental or adventitious parts, as to 
every thing human, some slight exceptions may 
be made; but the main fabric is immoveably 
supported. 

It is justly remarked by Addison, that this 
poem has, by the nature of its subject, the ad- 
vantage above all others, that it is universally 
and perpetually interesting. All mankind will, 
through all ages, bear the same relation to Adam 
and Eve, and must partake of that good and evil 
which extend to themselves. 

Of the machinery, so called from 0so? am ^«r«, 
by which is meant the occasional interposition 
of supernatural power, another fertile topic of 
critical remarks, here is no room to speak, be- 
cause every thing is done under the immediate 
and visible direction of Heaven ; but the rule is 
gj far observed, that no part of the action 



could have been accomplished by any other 
means. 

Of episodes, I think there are only two con- 
tained in Raphael's relation of the war in 
heaven, and Michael's prophetic account of the 
changes to happen in this world. Both are 
closely connected with the great action ; one was 
necessary to Adam as a warning, the other as a 
consolation. 

To the completeness or integrity of the design, 
nothing can be objected; it has distinctly and 
clearly what Aristotle requires — a beginning, a 
middle, and an end. There is perhaps no poem, 
of the- same length, from which so little can be 
taken without apparent mutilation. Here are 
no funeral games, nor is there any long descrip- 
tion of a shield. The short digressions at the 
beginning of the third, seventh, and ninth books, 
might doubtless be spared ; but superfluities so 
beautiful who would take away ? or who does 
not wish that the author of the " Iliad" had 
gratified succeeding ages with a little knowledge 
of himself? Perhaps no passages are more fre- 
quently or more attentively read than those ex- 
trinsic paragraphs ; and, since the end of poetry 
is pleasure, that cannot be unpoetical with which 
all are pleased. 

The questions, whether the action of the poem 
be strictly one, whether the poem can be pro- 
perly termed heroic, and who is the hero, are 
raised by such readers as draw their principles 
of judgment rather from books than from rea- 
son. Milton, though he entitled " Paradise 
Lost" only a poem, yet calls it himself heroic 
song. Dryden petulantly and indecently denies 
the heroism of Adam, because he was overcome : 
but there is no reason why the hero should not 
be unfortunate, except established practice, since 
success and virtue do not go necessarily together. 
Cato is the hero of Lucan ; but Lucan's autho- 
rity will not be suffered by Quintilian to decide. 
However, if success be necessary, Adam's de- 
ceiver was at last crushed ; Adam was restored 
to his Maker's favour, and therefore may se- 
curely resume his human rank. 

After the scheme and fabric of the poem, 
must be considered its component parts, the sen- 
timents and the diction. 

The sentiments, as expressive of manners, or 
appropriated to characters, are, for the greater 
part, unexceptionably just. 

Splendid passages, containing lessons of mo- 
rality, or precepts of prudence, occur seldom. 
Such is the original formation of this poem, that, 
as it admits no human manners till the fall, it can 
give little assistance to human conduct. Its end 
is to raise the thoughts above sublunary cares or 
pleasures. Yet the praise of that fortitude, with 
which Abdiel maintained his singularity of vir- 
tue against the scorn of multitudes, may be ac- 
commodated, to all times ; and Raphael's re- 
proof of Adam's curiosity after the planetary 



MILTON. 



49 



motions, with the answer returned by Adam, 
may be confidently opposed to any rule of life 
which any poet has delivered. 

The thoughts which are occasionally called 
forth in the progress, are such as could only be 
produced by an imagination in the highest de- 
gree fervid and active, to which materials were 
supplied by incessant study and unlimited curi- 
osity. The heat of Milton's mind may be said 
to sublimate his learning, to throw off into his 
work the spirit of science, unmingled with its 
grosser parts. 

He had, considered creation in its whole ex- 
tent, and his descriptions are therefore learned. 
He had accustomed his imagination to unre- 
strained indulgence, and his conceptions there- 
fore were extensive. The characteristic quality 
of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes des- 
cends to the elegant, but his element is the great. 
He can occasionally invest himself with grace ; 
but his natural port is gigantic loftiness.* He 
can please when pleasure is required ; but it is 
his peculiar power to astonish. 

He seems to have been well acquainted with 
his own genius, and to know what it was that 
Nature had bestowed upon him more bounti- 
fully than upon others ; the power of displaying 
the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the 
awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating 
the dreadful; he therefore chose a subject on 
which too much could not be said, on which he 
might tire his fancy without the censure of ex- 
travagance. 

The appearances of nature, and the occur- 
rences of life, did not satiate his appetite of 
greatness. To paint things as they are, requires 
a minute attention, and employs the memory 
rather than the fancy. Milton's delight was to 
sport in the wide regions of possibility ; reality 
was a scene too narrow for his mind. He sent his 
faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where 
only imagination can travel, and delighted to 
form new modes of existence, and furnish senti- 
ment and action to superior beings, to trace the 
counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of 
heaven. 

But he could not be always in other worlds ; 
he must sometimes revisit earth, and tell of 
things visible and known. When he cannot 
raise wonder by the sublimity of his mind, he 
gives delight by its fertility. 

Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill 
the imagination : but his images and descrip- 
tions of the scenes or operations of Nature do 
not seem to be always copied from original form, 
nor to have the freshness, raciness, and energy 
of immediate observation. He saw Nature, as 
Dryden expresses it, " through the spectacles of 
books j" and on most occasions calls learning to 

* .Algarotti terras it gigantesca subtimila Miltoni- 
una.— Br. J. 



his assistance. The garden of Eden brings to 
his mind the vale of Enna, where Proserpine 
was gathering flowers. Satan makes his way 
through fighting elements, like Argo between 
the Cyanean rocks ; or Ulysses, between the 
two Sicilian whirlpools, when he shunned Cha- 
rybdis on the larboard. The mythological allu- 
sions have been justly censured, as not being al- 
ways used with notice of their vanity ; but they 
contribute variety to the narration, and produce 
an alternate exercise of the memory and the 
fancy. 

His similes are less numerous, and more va- 
rious, than those of his predecessors. But he 
does not confine himself within the limits of ri- 
gorous comparison : his great excellence is am- 
plitude ; and he expands the adventitious image 
beyond the dimensions which the occasion re- 
quired. Thus, comparing the shield of Satan to 
the orb of the moon, he crowds the imagination 
with the discovery of the telescope, and all the 
wonders which the telescope discovers. 

Of his moral sentiments it is hardly praise to 
affirm that they excel those of all other poets ; 
for this superiority he was indebted to his ac- 
quaintance with the sacred writings. The an- 
cient epic poets, wanting the light of Revela- 
tion, were very unskilful teachers of virtue ; 
their principal characters may be great, but they 
are not amiable. The reader may rise from 
their works with a greater degree of active or 
passive fortitude, and sometimes of prudence; 
but he will be able to carry away few precepts 
of justice, and none of mercy. 

From the Italian writers it appears, that the 
advantages of even Christian knowledge may be 
possessed in vain. Ariosto's pravity is gene- 
rally known ; and, though the Deliverance of Je- 
rusalem may be considered as a sacred subject, 
the poet has been very sparing of moral instruc- 
tion. 

In Milton every line breathes sanctity of 
thought and purity of manners, except when the 
train of the narration requires the introduction 
of the rebellious spirits ; and even they are com- 
pelled to acknowledge their subjection to God, 
in such a manner as excites reverence and con- 
firms piety. 

Of human beings there are but two ; but 
those two are the parents of mankind, venerable 
before their fall for dignity and innocence, and 
amiable after it for repentance and submission. 
In the first state their affection is tender with- 
out weakness, and their piety sublime without 
presumption. When they have sinned, they 
show how discord begins in mutual frailty, and 
how it ought to cease in mutual forbearance ; 
how confidence of the Divine favour is forefeit- 
ed by sin, and how hope of pardon may be ob- 
tained by penitence and prayer. A state of in- 
nocence we can only conceive, if indeed, in our 
present misery, it be possible to conceive it ; but 



50 



MILTON. 



the sentiments and worship proper to a fallen 
and offending being, we have all to learn, as we 
have all to practise. 

The Poet, whatever he done, is always great. 
Our progenitors, in their first state, conversed 
with angels ; even when folly and sin had de- 
graded them, they had not in their humiliation 
the port of mean suitors ; and they rise again to 
reverential regard, when we find that their 
prayers were heard. 

As human passions did not enter the world 
before the fall, there is in the " Paradise Lost" 
little opportunity for the pathetic; but what 
little there is has not been lost. That passion 
which is peculiar to rational nature, the anguish 
arising from the consciousness of transgression, 
and the horrors attending the sense of the 
Divine displeasure, are very justly described 
and forcibly impressed. But the passions are 
moved only on one occasion ; sublimity is the 
general and prevailing quality of this poem ; 
sublimity variously modified, sometimes de- 
scriptive, sometimes argumentative. 

The defects and faults of " Paradise Lost," 
for faults and defects every work of man must 
have, it is the business of impartial criticism to 
discover. As, in displaying the excellence of 
Milton, I have not made long quotations, be- 
cause of selecting beauties there had been no 
end, I shall in the same general manner men- 
tion that which seems to deserve censure ; for 
what Englishman can take delight in transcrib- 
ing passages, which, if they lessen the reputa- 
tion of Milton, diminish in some degree the 
honour of our country ? 

The generality of my scheme does not admit 
the frequent notice of verbal inaccuracies : 
which Bentley, perhaps better skilled in gram- 
mar than in poetry, has often found, though he 
sometimes made them, and which he imputed 
to the obtrusions of a reviser, whom the 
Author's blindness obliged him to employ; a 
supposition rash and groundless, if he thought 
it true ; and vile and pernicious, if, as is said, 
he in private allowed it to be false. 

The plan of " Paradise Lost" has this incon- 
venience, that it comprises neither human ac- 
tions nor human manners.* The man and 
woman who act and suffer are in a state which 
no other man or woman can ever know. The 
reader finds no transaction in which he can be 
engaged ; beholds no condition in which he can by 
any effort of imagination place himself; he has, 
therefore, little natural curiosity or sympathy. 

We all, indeed, feel the effects of Adam's dis- 
obedience ; we all sin like Adam, and like him 
must all bewail our offences ; we have restless 
and insidious enemies in the fallen angels ; and 
in the blessed spirits we have guardians and 



* But, says Dr. Warton, it has throughout a refer- 
ence to human life and actions.— C. 



friends : in the redemption of mankind we hop* 
to be included ; and in the description of heaven 
and hell we are surely interested, as we are all 
to reside hereafter either in the regions of hor< 
ror or of bliss. 

But these truths are too important to be new ; 
they have been taught to our infancy; they 
have mingled with our solitary thoughts and 
familiar conversations, and are habitually inter- 
woven with the whole texture of life. Being 
therefore not new, they raise no unaccustomed 
emotion in the mind ; what we knew before, 
we cannot learn ; what is not unexpected, can- 
not surprise. 

Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, 
from some we recede with reverence, except 
when stated hours require their association ; 
and from others we shrink with horror, or ad- 
mit them only as salutary inflictions, as coun- 
terpoises to our interests and passions. Such 
images rather obstruct the career of fancy than 
incite it. 

Pleasure and terror are, indeed, the genuine 
sources of poetry ; but poetical pleasure must be 
such as human imagination can at least con- 
ceive ; and poetical terror such as human 
strength and fortitude may combat. The good 
and evil of eternity are too ponderous for the 
wings of wit ; the mind sinks under them with 
passive helplessness, content with calm belief 
and humble adoration. 

Known truths, however, may take a different 
appearance, and be conveyed to the mind by a 
new train of intermediate images. This Milton 
has undertaken, and performed with pregnancy 
and vigour of mind peculiar to himself. Who- 
ever considers the few radical positions which 
the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by 
what energetic operation he expanded them to 
such extent, and ramified them to so much 
variety, restrained as he was by religious rever- 
ence from licentiousness of fiction. 

Here is a full display of the united force of 
study and genius ; of a great accumulation of 
materials, with judgment to digest, and fancy 
to combine them : Milton was able to select 
from nature, or from story, from ancient fable, 
or from modern science, whatever could illus- 
trate or adorn his thoughts. A n accumulation 
of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented 
by study, and exalted by imagination. 

It has been therefore said, without an inde- 
cent hyperbole, by one of his encomiasts, that in 
reading " Paradise Lost," we read a book of 
universal knowledge. 

But original deficience cannot be supplied. 
The want of human interest is always felt. 
" Paradise Lost" is one of the books which the 
reader admires and lays down, and forgets to 
take up again. None ever wished it longer 
than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a 
pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, re- 



MILTON. 



51 



tire harassed and overburdened, and look else- 
where for recreation; we desert our master, 
and seek for companions. 

Another inconvenience of Milton's design is, 
that it requires the description of what cannot 
be described, the agency of spirits. He saw 
that immateriality supplied no images, and that 
he could not show angels acting but by instru- 
ments of action : he therefore invested them 
with form and matter. This, being necessary, 
was therefore defensible ; and he should have se- 
cured the consistency of his system, by keeping 
immateriality out of sight, and enticing his read- 
er to drop it from his thoughts. But he has un- 
happily perplexed his poetry with his philoso- 
phy. His infernal and celestial powers are 
sometimes pure spirit, and sometimes animated 
body. When Satan walks with his lance upon 
the burning marl, he has a body ; when, in his 
passage between hell and the new world, he is in 
danger of sinking in the vacuity, and is support- 
ed by a gust of rising vapours, he has a body ; 
when he animates the toad, he seems to be mere 
spirit, that can penetrate matter at pleasure; 
when he starts up in his own shape, he has at least 
a determined form ; and when he is brought be- 
fore Gabriel, he has a spear and a shield, which 
he had the power of hiding in the toad, though 
the arms of the contending angels are evidently 
material. 

The vulgar inhabitants of Pandaemonium, 
being incorporeal spirits, are at large, though ivith- 
out number, in a limited space : yet in the battle, 
when they were overwhelmed by mountains, 
their armour hurt them, crushed in upon their 
substance, now grown gross by sinning. This like- 
wise happened to the uncorrupted angels, who 
were overthrown the sooner for their arms, for 
unarmed they might easily as spirits have evaded by 
contraction or remove. Even as spirits they are 
hardly spiritual ; for contraction and remote are 
images of matter ; but if they could have escaped 
without their armour, they might have escaped 
from it, and left only the empty cover to be bat- 
tered. Uriel, when he rides on a sunbeam, is 
material ; Satan is material, when he is afraid 
of the prowess of Adam. 

The confusion of spirit and matter which per- 
vades the whole narration of the war of heaven, 
fills it with incongruity ; and the book in which 
it' is related is, 1 believe, the favourite of chil- 
dren, and gradually neglected as knowledge is 
increased. 

After the operation of immaterial agents 
which cannot be explained, may be considered 
that of allegorical persons which have no real 
existence. To exalt causes into agents, to invest 
abstract ideas with form, and animate them with 
activity, has always been the right of poetry. 
But such airy beings are, for the most part, suf- 
fered only to do their natural office, and retire. 
Thus Fame tells a tale, and Victory hovers over ] 



a general, or perches on a standard ; but Fame 
and Victory can do no more. To give them any 
real employment, or ascribe to them any mate- 
rial agency, is to make them allegorical no long- 
er, but to shock the mind by ascribing effects to 
nonentity. In the " Prometheus" of iEschylus, 
we see Violence and Strength, and in the " Al- 
cestis" of Euripides, we see Death, brought 
upon the stage, all as active persons of the dra- 
ma; but no precedents can justify absurdity. 

Milton's allegory of Sin and Death is un- 
doubtedly faulty. Sin is indeed the mother of 
Death, and may be allowed to be the portress of 
hell ; but when they stop the journey of Satan, 
a journey described as real, and when Death of- 
fers him battle, the allegory is broken. That 
Sin and Death should have shown the way to 
hell, might have been allowed ; but they cannot 
facilitate the passage by building a bridge, be- 
cause the difficulty of Satan's passage is de- 
scribed as real and sensible, and the bridge ought 
to be only figurative. The hell assigned to the 
rebellious spirits is described as not less local 
than the residence of man. It is placed in some 
distant part of space, separated from the regions 
of harmony and order, by a chaotic waste and 
an unoccupied vacuity ; but Sin and Death 
worked up a mole of aggravated soil, cemented 
with asphaltus ; a work too bulky for ideal ar- 
chitects. 

This unskilful allegory appears to me one of 
the greatest faults of the poem ; and to this 
there was no temptation but the Author's opin- 
ion of its beauty. 

To the conduct of the narrative some objec- 
tions may be made. Satan is with great expec- 
tation brought before Gabriel in paradise, and is 
suffered to go away unmolested. The creation 
of man is represented as the consequence of the 
vacuity left in heaven by the expulsion of the 
rebels ; yet Satan mentions it as a report rife in 
heaven before his departure. 

To find sentiments for the state of innocence 
was very difficult ; and something of anticipa- 
tion, perhaps, is now and then discovered. 
Adam's discourse of dreams seems not to be the 
speculation of a new-created being. I know not 
whether his answer to the angel's reproof for 
curiosity does not want something of propriety ; 
it is the speech of a man acquainted with many 
other men. Some philosophical notions, espe- 
cially when the philosophy is false, might have 
been better omitted. The angel, in a compari- 
son, speaks of timorous deer, before deer were yet 
timorous, and before Adam could understand the 
comparison. 

Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats 
among his elevations. This is only to say that 
all the parts are not equal. In every work one 
part must be for the sake of others ; a palace 
must have passages ; a poem must have transi- 
tions. It is no more to be required that wit 



52 



MILTON. 



should always be blazing, than that the sun 
should always stand at noon. In a great work 
there is a vicissitude of luminous and opaque 
parts, as there is in the world a succession of day 
and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in 
the sky, may be allowed sometimes to revisit 
earth; for what other author ever soared so 
higby or sustained his flight so long ? 

Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, 
appears to have borrowed often from them ; and, 
as every man catches something from his com- 
panions, his desire of imitating Ariosto's levity 
has disgraced his work with the " Paradise of 
Fools ;" a fiction not in itself ill-imagined, but 
too ludicrous for its place. 

His play on words, in which he delights too 
often ; his equivocations, which Bentley endea- 
vours to defend by the example of the ancients ; 
his unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of 
art, it is not necessary to mention, because they 
are easily remarked, and generally censured ; and 
at last bear so little proportion to €he whole, 
that they scarcely deserve the attention of a 
critic. 

Such are the faults of that wonderful per- 
formance, " Paradise Lost ;" which he who can 
put in balance with its beauties must be con- 
sidered not as nice but as dull, as less to be cen- 
sured for want of candour, than pitied for want 
of sensibility. 

Of " Paradise Regained," the general judg- 
ment seems now to be right, that it is in many 
parts elegant, and every where instructive. It 
was not to be supposed that the writer of " Pa- 
radise Lost" could ever write without great ef- 
fusions of fancy ; and exalted precepts of wis- 
dom. The basis of " Paradise Regained" is 
narrow ; a dialogue without action can never 
please like a union of the narrative and dra- 
matic powers. Had this poem been written not 
by Milton, but by some imitator, it would have 
claimed and received universal praise. 

If " Paradise Regained" has been too much 
depreciated, " Sampson Agonistes" has in re- 
quital been too much admired. It could only 
be by long prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, 
that Milton could prefer the ancient tragedies, 
with their incumbrance of a chorus, to the ex- 
hibitions of the French and English stages ; and 
it is only by a blind confidence in the reputation 
of Milton, that a drama can be praised in which 
the intermediate parts have neither cause nor 
consequence, neither hasten nor retard the ca- 
tastrophe. 

In this tragedy are, however, many particu- 
lar beauties, many just sentiments, and strik- 
ing lines ; but it wants tbat power of attracting 
the attention which a well-connected plan pro- 
duces. 

Milton would not have excelled in dramatic 
writing ; he knew human nature only in the 
gross, and had never studied the shades of cha- 



racter, nor the combinations of concurring, or 
the perplexity of contending, passions. He had 
read much, and knew what books could teach ; 
but had mingled little in the world, and was de- 
ficient in the knowledge which experience must 
confer. 

Through all his greater works there prevails 
a uniform peculiarity of diction, a mode and 
cast of expression which bears little resemblance 
to that of any former writer ; and which is so 
far removed from common use, that an un- 
learned reader, when he first opens his book, 
finds himself surprised by a new language. 

This novelty has been, by those who can find 
nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his labo- 
rious endeavours after words suitable to the 
grandeur of his ideas. " Our language," says 
Addison, " sunk under him." But the truth 
is, that, both in prose and verse, he had formed 
his style by a perverse and pedantic principle. 
He was desirous to use English words with a 
foreign idiom. This in all bis prose is disco- 
vered and condemned ; for there judgment ope- 
rates freely, neither softened by the beauty, nor 
awed by the dignity, of his thoughts j but such 
is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed 
without resistance, the reader feels himself in 
captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and cri- 
ticism sinks in admiration. 

Milton's style was not modified by his sub- 
ject ; what is shown with greater extent in 
" Paradise Lost," may be found in " Comus." 
One source of his peculiarity was his familiarity 
with the Tuscan poets ; the disposition of his 
words, is, 1 think, frequently Italian; perhaps 
sometimes combined with other tongues. 

Of him, at last, may be said what Jonson says 
of Spenser, that " he wrote no language," but 
has formed what Butler calls a " Babylonish 
dialect," in itself harsh and barbarous, but made 
by exalted genius and extensive learning the 
vehicle of so much instruction and so much plea- 
sure, that, like other lovers, we find grace in its 
deformity. 

Whatever be the faults of his diction, he can- 
not want the praise of copiousness and variety : 
he was master of his language in its full extent ; 
and has selected the melodious words with such 
diligence, that from his book alone the art of 
English poetry might be learned. 

After his diction, something must be said of 
his versification. " The measure," he says, " is 
the English heroic verse without rhyme." Of 
this mode he had many examples among the 
Italians, and some in his own country. The 
Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of 
Virgil's books without rhyme ;* and, beside our 
tragedies, a few short poems had appeared in 



* The Earl of Surrey translated two books of Vir- 
gil without rhyme, the second and the fourth.— J. B. 



BUTLER. 



53 



Wank verse, particularly one tending to recon- 
cile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon 
Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh him- 
self. These petty performances cannot be sup- 
posed to have much influenced Milton, who 
more probably took his hint from Trissino's 
Italia Liberata ; and, finding blank verse easier 
than rhyme, was desirous of persuading him- 
self that it is better. 

" Rhyme," he says, and says truly, " is no 
necessary adjunct of true poetry." But, per- 
haps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre or 
music is no necessary adjunct : it is however by 
the music of metre that poetry has been discri- 
minated in all languages ; and, in languages me- 
lodiously constructed with a due proportion of 
long and short syllables, metre is suflicient. But 
one language cannot communicate its rules to 
another ; where metre is scanty and imperfect, 
some help is necessary. The music of the Eng- 
lish heroic lines strikes the ear so faintly, that 
it is easily lost, unless all the syllables of every 
line co-operate together ; this co-operation can 
be only obtained by the preservation of every 
verse unmingled with another as a distinct sys- 
tem of sounds ; and this distinctness is obtained 
and preserved by the artifice of rhyme. The 
variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers 
of blank verse, changes the measures of an Eng- 
lish poet to the periods of a declaimer ; and there 
are only a few skilful and happy readers of Mil- 
ton, who enable their audience to perceive where 
the lines end or begin. " Blank verse," said an in- 
genious critic, " seems to be verse only to the eye. ' ' 

Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but Eng- 
lish poetry will not often please ; nor can rhyme 
ever be safely spared but where the subject is 
able to support itself. Blank verse makes some 
approach to that which is called the lapidary 



style ; has neither the easiness of prose, nor the 
melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long 
continuance. Of the Italian writers without 
rhyme, whom Milton alleges as precedents, not 
one is popular ; what reason could urge in its 
defence has been confuted by the ear. 

But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I 
cannot prevail on myself to wish that Milton 
had been a rhymer ; for I cannot wish his work 
to be other than it is ; yet, like other heroes, he is 
to be admired rather than imitated. He that 
thinks himself capable of astonishing may write 
blank verse : but those that hope only to please 
must condescend to rhyme. 

The highest praise of genius is original inven- 
tion. Milton cannot be said to have contrived 
the structure of an epic poem, and therefore 
owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of 
mind to which all generations must be indebted 
for the art of poetical narration, for the texture 
of the fable, the variation of incidents, the in- 
terposition of dialogue, and all the stratagems 
that surprise and enchain attention. But, of all 
the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps 
the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker 
for himself, confident of his own abilities, and 
disdainful of help or hinderance : he did not re- 
fuse admission to the thoughts or images of his 
predecessors, but he did not seek them. From 
his contemporaries he neither courted nor re- 
ceived support ; there is in his writings nothing 
by which the pride of other authors might be 
gratified, or favour gained, no exchange of 
praise, nor solicitation of support. His great 
works were performed under discountenance, 
and in blindness ; but difficulties vanished at his 
touch ; he was born for whatever is arduous ; 
and his work is not the greatest of heroic poems, 
only because it is not the first. 



BUTLER. 



Of the great Author of " Hudibras" there is a 
life prefixed to the later editions of his poem, by 
an unknown writer, and therefore of disputable 
authority ; and some account is incidentally given 
by Wood, who confesses the uncertainty of his 
own narrative : more however than they knew 
cannot now be learned, and nothing remains but 
to compare and copy them. 

Samuel Butler was born in the parish of 



Strensham, in Worcestershire, according to his 
biographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash 
finds confirmed by the register. He was chris- 
tened February 14. 

His father's condition is variously represented. 
Wood mentions him as competently wealthy; 
but Mr. Longueville, the son of Butler's prin- 
cipal friend, says he was an honest farmer with 
some small estate, who made a shift to educate 
his son sit the grammar-school of Worcester, 
H 



54 



BUTLER. 



uinler Mr. Henry Bright,* from whose care he 
removed for a short time to Cambridge; but, 
for want of money, was never made a member 
of any college. Wood leaves us rather doubtful 
whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford ; but 
at last makes him pass six or seven years at 
Cambridge, without knowing in what hall or 
college ; yet it can hardly be imagined that he 
lived so long in either university but as belong- 
ing to one house or another ; and-it is still less 
likely that he could havs so long inhabited a 
place of learning with so little distinction as to 
leave his residence uncertain. Dr. Nash has 
discovered that his father was owner of a house 
and a little land, worth about eight pounds a 
year still called Butler's tenement. 

Wood has his information from his brother, 
whose narrative placed him at Cambridge, in 
opposition to that of his neighbours, which sent 
him to Oxford. The brother seems the best 
authority, till, by confessing his inability to tell 
his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect 
that he was resolved to bestow on him an aca- 
demical education ; but durst not name a college, 
for fear of detection. 

He was, for some time, according to the 
author of his life, clerk to Mr. Jefferys, of 
Karl's Croomb, in Worcestershire, an eminent 
justice of the peace. In his service he had not 
only leisure for study, but for recreation ; his 
amusements were music and painting : and the 
reward of his pencil was the friendship of the 
celebrated Cooper. Some pictures, said to be 



* These are the words of the author of the short 
account of Butler prefixed to " Hudibras," which Dr. 
Johnson, notwithstanding what he says above, seems 
to have supposed was written by Mr. Longueville, 
the father ; but the contrary is to be inferred from a 
subsequent passage, wherein the author laments that 
he had neither such an acquaintance nor interest 
with Mr. Longueville, as to procure for him the gold- 
en remains of Butler there mentioned. He was pro- 
bably led into the mistake by a note in the Biog. Brit, 
p. 1077, signifying that the son of this gentleman was 
living in 1736. 

Of this friend and generous patron of Butler, Mr. 
William Longueville, I find an account, written by a 
person who was well acquainted with him, to this 
effect ; viz. that he was a conveyancing lawyer, and 
a bencher of the Inner Temple, and had raised him- 
self from a low beginning to very great eminence in 
that profession ; that he was eloquent and learned, 
of spotless integrity ; that he supported an aged fa- 
ther who had ruined his fortunes by extravagance, 
and by his industry and application re-edified a 
ruined family ; that he supported Butler, who, but 
for him, must literally have starved ; and received 
from him, as a recompence, the papers called his 
" Remains." Life of the Lord-keeper Guilford, p. 
289. — These have since been given to the public by 
Mr. Thyer, of Manchester ; and the originals are now 
in the hands of the Rev. Dr. Farmer, master of Ema- 
nuel College, Cambridge. — H. 



his, were shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl's 
Croomb ; but, when he inquired for them some 
years afterwards, he found them destroyed, to 
stop windows, and owns that they hardly de- 
served a better fate. 

He was afterwards admitted into the family 
of the Countess of Kent, where he had the use of 
a library ; and so much recommended himself 
to Selden, that he was often employed by him 
in literary business. Selden, as is well known, 
was steward to the Countess, and is supposed to 
have gained much of his wealth by managing 
her estate. 

In what character Butler was admitted into 
that lady's service, how long he continued in it, 
and why he left it, is, like the other incidents 
of his life, utterly unknown. 

The vicissitudes of his condition placed him 
afterwards in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, 
one of Cromwell's officers. Here he observed 
so much of the character of the sectaries, that he 
is said to have written or begun his poem at 
this time ; and it is likely that such a design 
would be formed in a place where he saw the 
principles and practices of the rebels, audacious 
and undisguised in the confidence of success. 

At length the King returned, and the time 
came in which loyalty hoped for its reward. 
Butler, however, was only made secretary to 
the Earl of Carbury, president of the principal- 
ity of Wales ; who conferred on him the 
stewardship of Ludlow Castle, when the Court 
of the Marches was revived. 

In this part of his life, he married Mrs. Her- 
bert, a gentlewoman of a good family, and 
lived, says Wood, upon her fortune, having 
studied the common law, but never practised it. 
A fortune she had, says his biographer, but it 
was lost by bad securities. 

In 16b3 was published the first part, contain- 
ing three cantos, of the poem of " Hudibras," 
which, as Prior relates, was made known at 
court, by the taste and influence of the Earl of 
Dorset. When it was known, it was necessar- 
ily admired : the King quoted, the courtiers 
studied, and the whole party of the royalists ap- 
plauded it. Every eye watched for the golden 
shower which was to fall upon the Author, 
who certainly was not without his part in the 
general expectation. 

In 1664 the second part appeared ; the curi- 
osity of the nation was rekindled, and the 
writer was again praised and elated. But 
praise was his whole reward. " Clarendon,'-* 
says Wood, " gave him reason to hope for 
places and employments of value and credit;" 
but no such advantages did he ever obtain. It 
is reported that the .King once gave him three 
hundred guineas ; but of this temporary bounty 
I find no proof. 

Wood relates that he was secretary to Villiers, 
duke of Buckingham, when he was chancellor 



BUTLER. 



55 



of Cambridge : this is doubted by the other 
writer, who yet allows the Duke to have been 
his frequent benefactor. That both these ac- 
counts are false there is reason to suspect, from 
a story told by Packe, in his account of the Life 
of Wycherley; and from some verses which 
Mr. Thyer has published in the Author's Re- 
mains. 

" Mr. Wycherley," says Packe, " had always 
laid hold of an opportunity which offered of re- 
presenting to the Duke of Buckingham how 
well Mr. Butler had deserved of the royal 
family, by writing his inimitable ' Hudibras ;' 
and that it was a reproach to the court, that a 
person of his loyalty and wit should suffer in 
obscurity, and under the wants he did. The 
Duke always seemed to hearken to him with 
attention enough ; and after some time under- 
took to recommend his pretensions to his Majes- 
ty. Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him 
steady to his word, obtained of his Grace to 
name a day, when he might introduce that 
modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. 
At last an appointment was made, and the place 
of meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. 
Butler and his friend attended accordingly ; the 
Duke joined them; but, as the devil would 
have it, the door of the room where they sat was 
open, and his Grace, who had seated himself 
near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance 
(the creature too was a knight) trip by with a 
brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engage- 
ment to follow another kind of business, at 
which he was more ready than in doing good 
offices to men of desert, though no one was bet- 
ter qualified than he, both in regard to his for- 
tune and understanding, to protect them ; and 
from that time to the day of his death, poor 
Butler never found the least effect of his pro- 
mise !" , 

Such is the story. The verses are Written 
with a degree of acrimony, such as neglect and 
disappointment might naturally excite; and 
such as it would be hard to imagine Butler ca- 
pable of expressing against a man who had any 
claim to his gratitude. 

Notwithstanding this discouragement and 
neglect, he still prosecuted his design ; and in 
1678 published a third part, which still leaves 
the poem imperfect and abrupt. How much 
more he originally intended, or with what events 
the action was to be concluded, it is vain to con- 
jecture. Nor can it be thought strange that he 
should stop here, however unexpectedly. To 
write without reward is sufficiently unpleasing. 
He had now arrived at an age when he might 
think it proper to be in jest no longer, and per- 
haps his health might now begin to" fail. 

He died in 1680 ; and Mr. Longueville, hav- 
ing unsuccessfully solicited a subscription for 
his interment in Westminster Abbey, buried 
him at his own cost in the churchyard of Co- 



vent-garden. * Dr. Simon Patrick read the ser- 
vice. 

Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who 
named for his authority Mr. Lowndes of the 
Treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of 
a hundred pounds. This is contradicted by all 
tradition, by the complaints of Oldham, and by 
the reproaches of Dryden ; and I am afraid will 
never be confirmed. 

About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a 
printer, mayor of London, and a friend to But- 
ler's principles, bestowed on him a monument 
in Westminster Abbey, thus inscribed : 

M. S. 

SAMUELIS BUTLERI, 

Qui Strenshamias in agro Vigorn. nat. 1612/ 

obiit Lcrad. 1680. 

Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer ; 

Operibus Ingenii, non item praemiis, foelix 

Satyrici apud nos Carminis Artifex egregius 

Quo simulatae Religicmis Larvam detraxit, 

Et Perduellium scelera Uberrima exagitavit ; 

Scriptorum in suo genere, Primus et Postremus. 

Ne, cui vivo deerant fere omnia, 

Deesset etiam mortuo Tumulus, 

Hoc tandem posito marmore, curavit 

Johannes Barber, Civis Londinensis, 1721.' 

After his death were published three small 
volumes of his posthumous works : I know not 
by whom collected, or by what authority ascer- 
tained^ and, lately, two volumes more have 
been printed by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, in- 
dubitably genuine. From none of these pieces 
can his life be traced, or his character discover- 
ed. Some verses, in the last collection, show 
him to have been among those who ridiculed the 
institution of the Royal Society, of which the 
enemies were for some time very numerous and 
very acrimonious, for what reason it is hard to 
conceive, since the philosophers professed not to 
advance doctrines, but to produce facts ; and the 
most zealous enemy of innovation must admit 
the gradual progress of experience, however he 
may oppose hypothetical temerity. 

In this mist of obscurity passed the life of 
Butler, a man whose name can only perish with 
his language. The mode and place of his edu- 
cation are unknown ; the events of his life are 
variously related ; and all that can be told with 
certainty is, that he was poor. 

The poem of " Hudibras" is one of those 
compositions of which a nation may justly 
boast ; as the images which it exhibits are do* 



# In a note in tbe " Biograpbia 'Britannica," p. 
1075, he is said, on the authority of the younger Mr. 
Longueville, to have lived for some years in Rose- 
street, Covent-garden, and also that he died there ; 
the latter of these particulars is rendered highly 
probable, by his being interred in the cemetery of 
that parish. — H. 

t They were collected into one, and published in 
12mo. 1732.— H. 



56 



BUTLER. 



mestic, the sentiments unborrowed and unex- 
pected, and the strain of diction original and 
peculiar. "We must not, however, suffer the 
pride, which we assume as the countrymen of 
Butler, to make any encroachment upon justice, 
nor appropriate those honours which others have 
a right to share. The poem of " Hudibras" is 
not wholly English ; the original idea is to be 
found in the history of " Don Quixote ;" a book 
to which a mind of the greatest powers may be 
indebted without disgrace. 

Cervantes shows a man, who having, by the 
incessant perusal of incredible tales, subjected 
his understanding to his imagination, and fami- 
liarised his mind by pertinacious meditation to 
trains of incredible events, and scenes of impos- 
sible existence ; goes out in the pride of knight- 
hood to redress wrongs, and defend virgins, to 
rescue captive princesses, and tumble usurpers 
from their thrones ; attended by a squire, whose 
cunning, too low for the suspicion of a generous 
mind, enables him often to cheat his master. 

The hero of Butler is a presbyterian justice, 
who, in the confidence of legal authority and 
the rage of zealous ignorance, ranges the coun- 
try to repress superstition and correct abuses, 
accompanied by an independent clerk, disputa- 
tious and obstinate, with whom he often debates, 
but never conquers him. 

Cervantes had so much kindness for Don 
Quixote, that, however he embarrasses him with 
absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense 
and virtue as may preserve our esteem ; wher- 
ever he is, or whatever he does, he is made by 
matchless dexterity commonly ridiculous, but 
never contemptible. 

But for poor Hudibras, his poet had no ten- 
derness ; he chooses not that any pity should be 
shown or respect paid him ; he gives him up at 
once to laughter and contempt, without any 
quality that can dignify or protect him. 

In forming the character of Hudibras, and 
describing his person and habiliments, the au- 
thor seems to labour with a tumultuous confu- 
sion of dissimilar ideas. He had read the his- 
tory of the mock knights-errant ; he knew the 
notions and manners of a presbyterian magis- 
trate, and tried to unite the absurdities of both, 
however distant, in one personage. Thus he 
gives him that pedantic ostentation of know- 
ledge which has no relation to chivalry, and 
loads him with martial incumbrances that can 
add nothing to his civil dignity. He sends him 
out a colonelling, and yet never brings him with- 
in sight of war. 

If Hudibras be considered as the representa- 
tive of the presbyterians, it is not easy to say 
why his weapons should be represented as ridi- 
culous or useless; for, whatever judgment might 
be passed upon their knowledge or their argu- 
ments, experience had sufficiently shown that 
their ? tvords were not to be despised. 



The hero, thus compounded of swaggerer and 
pedant, of knight and justice, is led forth to ac- 
tion, with his squire Ralpho, an independent 
enthusiast. 

Of the contexture of events planned by the 
Author, which is called the action of the poem, 
since, it is left imperfect, no judgment can be 
made. It is probable that the hero was to be 
led through many luckless adventures, which 
would give occasion, like his attack upon the 
" bear and fiddle," to expose the ridiculous ri- 
gour of the sectaries; like his encounter with 
Sidrophel and Whachum, to make superstition 
and credulity contemptible ; or, like his recourse 
to the low retailer of the law, discover the frau- 
dulent practices of different professions. 

What series of events he would have formed, 
or in what manner he would have rewarded or 
punished his hero, it is now vain to conjecture. 
His work must have had, as it seems, the defect 
which Dryden imputes to Spenser ; the action 
could not have been one; there could only have 
been a succession of incidents, each of which 
might have happened without the rest, and 
which could not all co-operate to any single con- 
clusion. 

The discontinuity of the action might however 
have been easily forgiven, if there had been ac- 
tion enough ; but I believe every reader regrets 
the paucity of events, and complains that in the 
poem of " Hudibras," as in the history of Thu- 
cydides, there is more said than done. The 
scenes are too seldom changed, and the attention 
is tired with long conversation. 

It is, indeed, much mere easy to form dia- 
logues than to contrive adventures. Every po- 
sition makes way for an argument, and every 
objection dictates an answer. When two dis- 
putants are engaged upon a complicated and ex- 
tensive question, the difficulty is not to continue, 
but to end, the controversy. But whether it be 
that we comprehend but few of the possibilities 
of life, or that life itself affords little variety, 
every man who has tried knows how much la- 
bour it will cost to form such a combination of 
circumstances as shall have at once the grace of 
novelty and credibility, and delight fancy with- 
out violence to reason. 

Perhaps the dialogue of this poem is not per- 
fect. Some power of engaging the attention 
might have been added ,to it by quicker recipro- 
cation, by seasonable interruptions, by sudden 
questions, and by a nearer approach to dramatic 
sprightliness; without which fictitious speeches 
will always tire, however sparkling with sen- 
tences, and however variegated with allusions. 

The great source of pleasure is variety. Uni- 
formity must tire at last, though it be uniformi- 
ty of excellence. We love to expect ; and, when 
expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want 
to be again expecting. For this impatience of 
the present, whoever would please must make 



BUTLER. 



57 



provision. The skilful writer irritat, mulcet, 
makes a due distribution of the still and ani- 
mated parts. It is for want of this artful inter- 
texture, and those necessary changes, that the 
whole of a book may be tedious, though all the 
parts are praised. 

If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual 
pleasure, no eye would ever leave half-read the 
work of Butler ; for what poet has ever brought 
so many remote images so happily together ? It 
is scarcely possible to peruse a page without 
finding some association of images that was 
never found before. By the first paragraph the 
reader is amused, by the next he is delighted, 
and by a few more strained to astonishment ; but 
astonishment is a toilsome pleasure ; he is soon 
weary of wondex-ing, and longs to be diverted. 

Omnia vult belle Matho dicere, die aliquando 
Et bene, die neutrum, die aliquando male. 

Imagination is useless without knowledge : 
nature gives in vain the power of combination, 
unless study and observation supply materials to 
be combined. Butler's treasures of knowledge 
appear proportioned to his expense : whatever 
topic employs his mind, he shows himself quali- 
fied to expand and illustrate it with all the ac- 
cessaries that books can furnish: he is found 
not only to have travelled the beaten road, but 
the bye-paths of literature ; not only to have 
taken general surveys, but to have examined 
particulars with minute inspection. 

If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, 
we need not be afraid of confronting them with 
Butler. 

But the most valuable parts of his perform- 
ance are those which retired study and native 
wit cannot supply. He that merely makes a 
book from books may be useful, but can scarcely 
be great. Butler had not suffered life to glide 
beside him unseen or unobserved. He had 
watched with great diligence the operations of 
human nature, and traced the effects of opinion, 
humour, interest, and passion. From such re- 
marks proceeded that great number of senten- 
tious distichs which have passed into conversa- 
tion, and are added as proverbial axioms to the 
general stock of practical knowledge. 

When any work has been viewed and admired, 
the first question of intelligent curiosity is, how 
was it performed? "Hudibras" was not a 
hasty effusion ; it was not produced by a sud- 
den tumult of imagination, or a short paroxysm 
of violent labour. To accumulate such a mass 
of sentiments at the call of accidental desire, or 
of sudden necessity, is beyond the reach and 
power of the most active and comprehensive 
mind. I am informed by Mr. Thyer, of Man- 
chester, that excellent editor of this author's re- 
lics, that he could show something like " Hu- 
dibras" in prose. He has in his possession the 
common-place book, in which Butler reposiied 



not such events and precepts as are gathered by 
reading, but such remarks, similitudes, allusions, 
assemblages, or inferences, as occasion prompted, 
or meditation produced, those thoughts that 
were generated in his own mind, and might be 
usefully applied to some future purpose. Such 
is the labour of those who write for immortality. 

But human works are not easily found with- 
out a perishable part. Of the ancient poets 
every reader feels the mythology tedious and 
oppressive. Of " Hudibras," the manners, 
being founded on opinions, are temporary and 
local, and therefore become every day less intel- 
ligible, and less striking. What Cicero says of 
philosophy is true likewise of wit and humour, 
that " time effaces the fictions of opinions, and 
confirms the determinations of Nature." Such 
manners as depend upon standing relations and 
general passions are co-extended with the race 
of man ; but those modifications of life and pe- 
culiarities of practice, which are the progeny of 
error and perverseness, or at best of some acci- 
dental influence or transient persuasion, must 
perish with their parents. 

Much therefore of that humour which trans- 
ported the last* century with merriment is lost 
to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the 
sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and 
the stubborn scruples of the ancient puritans ; or, 
if we knew them, derive our information only 
from books, or from tradition, have never had 
them before our eyes, and cannot but by recol- 
lection and study understand the lines in which 
they are satirized. Our grandfathers knew the 
picture from the life ; we judge of the life by 
contemplating the picture. 

It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and 
composure of the present time, to image the 
tumult of absurdity, and clamour of contradic- 
tion, which perplexed doctrine, disordered prac- 
tice, and disturbed both public and private quiet, 
in that age when subordination was broken, and 
awe was hissed away ; when any unsettled in- 
novator, who could hatch a half-formed notion, 
produced it to the public ; when every man 
might become a preacher, and almost every 
preacher could collect a congregation. 

The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably 
supposed to reside in the parliament. What 
can be concluded of the lower classes of the peo- 
ple, when, in one of the parliaments summoned 
by Cromwell, it was seriously proposed, that all 
the records in the tower should be burnt, that 
all memory of things past should be effaced, and 
that the whole system of life should commence 
anew? 

We have never been witnesses of animosities 
excited by the use of mince-pies and plum-por- 
ridge; nor seen with what abhorrence those, 



* The sevemeenth, 



58 



BUTLER. 



who could eat them at all other times of the 
year, would shrink from them in December. 
An old puritan, who was alive in my childhood, 
being at one of the feasts of the church invited 
by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him, j 
that if he would treat him at an alehouse with j 
beer brewed for all times and seasons, he should 
accept his kindness, but would have none of his 
superstitious meats or drinks. 

One of the puritanical tenets was the illegal- 
ity of all games of chance ; and he that reads 
Gataker upon Lots may see how much learning 
and reason one of the first scholars of his age 
thought necessary, to prove that it was no crime 
to throw a die, or play at cards, or to hide a 
shilling for the reckoning. 

Astrology, however, against which so much 
of the satire is directed, was not more the folly 
of the puritans than of others. It had in that 
time a very extensive dominion. Its predictions 
raised hopes and fears in minds which ought to 
have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous 
undertakings care was taken to begin under the 
influence of a propitious planet ; and, when the 
King was prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, an 
astrologer was consulted what hour would be 
found most favourable to an escape. 

What effect this poem had upon the public, 
whether it shamed imposture, or reclaimed cre- 
dulity, is not easily determined. Cheats can 
seldom stand long against laughter. It is cer- 
tain that the credit of planetary intelligence 
wore fast away ; though some men of knowledge, 
and Dryden among them, continued to believe 
that conjunctions and oppositions had a great 
part in the distribution of good or evil, and in 
the government of sublunary things. 

Poetical action ought to be probable upon cer- 
tain suppositions; and such probability as bur- 
lesque requires is here violated only by one in- 
cident. Nothing can show more plainly the 
necessity of doing something, and the difficulty 
of finding something to do, than that Butler 
was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagella- 
tion of Sancho, not the most agreeable fiction of 
Cervantes ; very suitable indeed to the manners 
of that age and nation, which ascribed wonder- 
ful efficacy to voluntary penances ; but so re- 
mote from the practice and opinions of the 
Hudibrastic time, that judgment and imagina- 
tion are alike offended. 

The diction of this poem is grossly familiar, 



and the numbers purposely neglected, except in 
a few places where the thoughts by their native 
excellence secure themselves from violation, 
being such as mean language cannot express. 
The mode of versification has been blamed by 
Dryden, who regrets that the heroic measure 
was not rather chosen. To the critical sentence 
of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, 
were not his decisions often precipitate, and his 
opinions immature. When he Avished to change 
the measure, he probably would have been wil- 
ling to change more. If he intended that, when 
the numbers were heroic, the diction should 
still remain vulgar, he planned a very heteroge- 
neous and unnatural composition. If he pre- 
ferred a general stateliness both of sound and 
Avords, he can be only understood to wish But- 
ler had undertaken a different work. 

The measure is quick, sprightly, and collo- 
quial, suitable to the vulgarity of the words and 
the levity of the sentiments. But such numbers 
and such diction can gain regard only when they 
are used by a writer whose vigour of fancy and 
copiousness of knowledge entitle him to con- 
tempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of 
the novelty and justness of his conceptions, can 
afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. 
To another that conveys common thoughts in 
careless versification, it will only be said, Pau- 
per videri Cinna vult, et est pauper. The mean- 
ing and diction will be worthy of each other, 
and criticism may justly doom them to perish 
together. 

Nor even though another Butler should arise, 
would another " Hudibras " obtain the same 
regard. Burlesque consists in a disproportion 
between the style and the sentiments, or be- 
tween the adventitious sentiments and the fun- 
damental subject. It, therefore, like all bodies 
compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in 
it a principle of corruption. All disproportion 
is unnatural : and from what is unnatural we 
can derive only the pleasure which novelty pro- 
duces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing ; 
but when it is no longer strange, we perceive its 
deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by 
frequent repetition detects itself: and the 
reader, learning in time what he is to expect, 
lays down his book, as the spectator turns 
away from a second exhibition of those tricks, 
of which the only use is to show that they can 
be played. 



ROCHESTER. 



John Wilmot, afterwards Earl of Rochester, 
the son of Henry Earl of Rochester, better 
known by the title of Lord Wilmot, so often 
mentioned in Clarendon's History, was born 
April 10, 1647, at Ditchley, in Oxfordshire. 
After a grammatical education at the school of 
Burford, he entered a nobleman into Wadham 
College, in 1659, only twelve years old ; and in 
1661, at fourteen, was, with some other persons 
of high rank, made master of arts by Lord Cla- 
rendon in person. 

He travelled afterwards into France and 
Italy ; and at his return devoted himself to the 
court. In 1665 he went to sea with Sandwich, 
and distinguished himself at Bergen by uncom- 
mon intrepidity ; and the next summer served 
again on board Sir Edward Spragge, who, in 
the heat of the engagement, having a message of 
reproof to send to one of his captains, could find 
no man ready to carry it but Wilmot, who, in 
an open boat, went and returned amidst the 
storm of shot. 

But his reputation for bravery was not last- 
ing ; he was reproached with slinking away in 
6treet quarrels, and leaving his companions to 
shift as they could without him ; and Sheffield 
Duke of Buckingham, has left a story of his re- 
fusal to fight him. 

He had very early an inclination to intemper- 
ance, which he totally subdued in his travels ; 
but, when he became a courtier, he unhappily 
addicted himself to dissolute and vicious com- 
pany, by which his principles were corrupted, 
and his manners depraved. He lost all sense of 
religious restraint, and, finding it not convenient 
to admit the authority of laws, which he was 
resolved not to obey, sheltered his wickedness 
behind infidelity. 

As he excelled in that noisy and licentious 
merriment which wine excites, his companions 
eagerly encouraged him in excess, and he will- 
ingly indulged it ; till, as he confessed to Dr. 
Burnet, he was for five years together con- 
tinually drunk, or so much inflamed by fre- 
quent ebriety, as in no interval to be master of 
himself. 

In this state he played many frolics, which it 
is not for his honour that we should remember, 
and which are not now distinctly known. He 
often pursued low amours in mean disguises, 
and always acted with great exactness and dex- 
terity the characters which he assumed. 

He once erected a stage on Tower-hill, and 
harangued the populace as a mountebank ; and, 
having made physic part of his study, is said to 
have practised it successfully. 



He was so much in favour with King 
Charles, that he was made one of the gentle- 
men of the bed-chamber, and comptroller of 
Woodstock Park. 

Having an active and inquisitive mind, he 
never, except in his paroxysms of intemperance, 
was wholly negligent of study ; he read what is 
considered as polite learning so much, that he 
is mentioned by Wood as the greatest scholar 
of all the nobility. Sometimes he retired into 
the country, and amused himself with writing 
libels, in which he did not pretend to confine 
himself to truth. 

His favourite author in French was Boileau, 
and in English, Cowley. 

Thus in a course of drunken gayety, and gross 
sensuality, with intervals of study perhaps yet 
more criminal, with an avowed contempt of all 
decency and order, a total disregard of every 
moral, and a resolute denial of every religious 
obligation, he lived worthless and useless, and 
blazed out his youth and his health in lavish 
voluptuousness; till, at the age of one-and- 
thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and 
reduced himself to a state of weakness and 
decay. 

At this time he was led to an acquaintance 
with Dr. Burnet, to whom he laid open with 
great freedom the tenor of his opinions, and the 
course of his life, and from whom he received 
such conviction of the reasonableness of moral 
duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produced 
a total change both of his manners and opinions. 
The account of those salutary conferences is 
given by Burnet in a book, entitled, " Some 
Passages of the Life and Death of John Earl 
of Rochester," which the critic ought to read 
for its elegance, the philosopher for its argu- 
ments, and the saint for its piety. It were an 
injury to the reader to offer him an abridgment. 

He died July 26, 1680, before he had com- 
pleted his thirty-fourth year ; and was so worn 
away by a long illness, that life went out with- 
out a struggle. 

Lord Rochester was eminent for the vigour 
of his colloquial wit, and remarkable for many 
wild pranks and sallies of extravagance. The 
glare of his general character diffused itself up- 
on his writings; the compositions of a man 
whose name was heard so often were certain of 
attention, and from many readers certain of 
applause. This blaze of reputation is not yet 
quite extinguished ; and his poetry still retains 
some splendour beyond that which genius has 
bestowed. 

Wood and Burnet give us reason to believe, 



60 



ROCHESTER. 



that much was imputed to him which he did 
not write. I know not by whom the original 
collection was made, or by what authority its 
genuineness was ascertained. The first edition 
was published in the year of his death, with an 
air of concealment, professing in the title-page 
to be printed at Antwerp. 

Of some of the pieces, however, there is no 
doubt. The imitation of Horace's satire, the 
verses to Lord Mulgrave, satire against Man, 
the verses upon " Nothing. " and perhaps some 
others, are I believe genuine, and perhaps most 
of those which the collection exhibits.* 

As he cannot be supposed to have found lei- 
sure for any course of continued study, his 
pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of re- 
solution- would produce. 

His songs have no particular character ; they 
tell, like other songs, in smooth and easy lan- 
guage, of scorn and kindness, dismission and 
desertion, absence and inconstancy, with the 
common-places of artificial courtship. They 
are commonly smooth and easy ; but have little 
nature, and little sentiment. 

His imitation of Horace on Lucilius is not 
inelegant, or unhappy. In the reign of Charles 
the Second began that adaption, which has 
since been very frequent, of ancient poetry to 
present times ; and perhaps few will be found 
where the parallelism is better preserved than 
in this. The versification is indeed sometimes 
careless, but it is sometimes vigorous and weighty. 

The strongest effort of his Muse is his poem 
upon " Nothing." He is not the first who has 
chosen this barren topic for the boast of his 
fertility. There is a poem called " Nihil," in 
Latin, by Passerat, a poet and critic of the 
sixteenth century in France ; who, in his own 
epitaph, expresses his zeal for good poetry 
thus :— 

— Molliter ossa quiescent, 
Sint modo carminibus non ontrata malis. 

His works are not common, and therefore I 
shall subjoin his verses. 

In examining this performance, "Nothing" 
must be considered as having not only a nega- 
tive but a kind of positive signification ; as I 
need not fear thieves, I have nothing, and no- 
thing is a very powerful protector. In the first 
part of the sentence it is taken negatively, in 
the second it is taken positively, as an agent. 
In one of Boileau's lines it was a question, 
whether he should use & rien /aire, or d. ne rien 



* Dr. Johnson has made no mention of " Valen- 
tinian," (altered from Beaumont and Fletcher) which 
was published after his death by a friend who de- 
scribes him in the preface not only as being one of 
the greatest geniuses, but one of .the most virtuous 
men that ever existed. — J. B. 



/aire; and the first was preferred because it 
gave rien a sense in some sort positive. Nothing 
can be a subject only in its positive sense, and 
such a sense is given it in the first line :— 

Nothing, thou elder brother ev'n to shade. 

In this line, I know not whether he does not 
allude to a curious book, '•' De Umbra," by 
Wowerus, which having told the qualities c i 
shade, concludes with a poem in which are these 
lines : 

Jam primum terram validis circumspice claustris 
Suspensam totim, decus admirabile mundi 
Terrasque tractusque maris, camposque liquentes 

Mais et vasti laqueata palatia cosli 

Omnibus umbra prior. 

The positive sense is generally preserved with 
great skill through the whole poem ; though, 
sometimes, in a subordinate sense, the negative 
nothing is injudiciously mingled. Passerat con- 
founds the two senses. 

Another of his most vigorous pieces is his 
lampoon on Sir Car Scrope, who, in a poem 
called " The Praise of satire," had some lines 
like these : *— , 

He who can push into a midnight fray 
His brave companion, ?nd then run away, 
Leaving him to be mttfder'd in the street, 
Then put it off with some buffoon conceit : 
Him, thus dishonoured, for a wit you owd,' 
And court him as top fiddler of the town. 

This was meant of Rochester, whose buffoon 
conceit was, I suppose, a saying often mentioned, 
that every man would be a coward if he durst; and 
drew from him those furious verses ; to which 
Scrope made in reply an epigram, ending with 
these lines : 

Thou car st hurt no man's fame with thy ill word ; 
Thy pen is full as harmless as thy sword. 

Of the satire against "Man," Rochester can 
only claim what remains when all Boileau's 
part is taken away. 

In all his works there is sprightliness and 
vigour, and every where may be found tokens 
of a mind which study might have carried to 
excellence. What more can be expected from a 
life spent in ostentatious eontempt of regularity, 
and ended before the abilities of many other 
men began to be displayed ?f 



• I quote from memory. — Dr. J. 

t The late George Stephens, Esq. made the selec- 
tion of Rochester's Poems which appears in Dr. 
Johnson's edition ; but Mr. Malone observes, tha 
the same task had been performed in the early part 
of the last century by Jacob Tonson.— C . 



ROSCOMMO N. 



61 



POEMA 

CI. V. JOANNIS PASSERATII, 

Regii in Academia Parisiensi Professoris, 

AD ORNATIrfSIMUM VIRUM ERRICUM MEMMIUM. 

Janus adest, festas poscunt sua dona Kalendas, 
Munus abest festis quod possim oiferre Kalendis. 
Siccine Castalius nobis exaruit humor? 
Usque adeo ingeuii nostri est exhausta facultas, 
Immuncm ut videat redeuntis janitor anni 1 
Quod nusquam est, potius nova per vestigia quaeram. 

Ecce autem partes dum sese versat in omnes 
Iavenit mea Musa nihil, ne despice munus. 
Nam nihil est gemmis, nihil est pretiosius auro. 
Hue animum, hue igitur vultus adverte benignos : 
Res nova narratur quae nulli audita prioruin, 
Ausonii et Graii dixerunt castera vates, 
Ausonias indictum nihil est Graecaeque Camoenae. 

E coelo quacunque Ceres sua prospicit arva, 
Aut genitor liquidis orbem complectitur ulnis 
Oceanus, nihil interitus et origiais expers. 
Immortale nihil, nihil omni parte beatum. 
Quod si hinc majestas et vis divina probatur, 
Num quid honore deum, num quid dignabimur aris ? 
Conspectu lucis nihil est jucundius almas, 
Vere nihil, nihil irriguo formosius horto, 
Floridius pratis, Zephyri clementius aura; 
In bello sanctum nihil est, Martisque tumultu : 
Justum in pace nihil, nihil est in foedere tutum. 
Felix cui nihil est, (fuerant haec vota Tibullo) 
Non timet insidias : fures, incendia temnit: 
Solicitas sequitnr nullo sub judice lites. 
Ille ipse invictis qui subjicit omnia fatis 
Zenonis sapiens, nihil admiratur et optat. 
Socraticique gregis fuit ista scientia quondam, 
Scire niliil, studio cui nunc incumbitur uni. 
Nee quicquam in ludo mavult didicisse j uventus, 



Ad magnas quia ducit opes, et culmen honorum. 
Nosce nihil, nosces fertur quod Pythagorese 
G/ano hterere fabae, cui vox adjuncta negantis. 
Multi Mercurio freti duce viscera terras 
Pura liquefaciunt simul, et patrimonia miscent, 
Arcano instantes operi, et carbonibus atris, 
Qui tandem exhausti damnis, fractique labore, 
Inveniunt atque inventum nihil usque requirunt. 
Hoc dimetiri non ulla decempeda possit : 
Nee numeret Libycae numerum qui callet arenae: 
Et Phoebo ignotum nihil est, nihil altius astris. 
Tuque, tibi licet eximium sit mentis acumen, 
Omncm in naturam penetrans, et in abdita rerum, 
Pace tua, Memmi, nihil ignorare videris. 
Sole tamen nihil est, a puro clarius igne. 
Tange nihil, dicesque nihil sine corpore tangi. 
Cerne nihil, cerni dices nihil absque colore. 
Surdum audit loquiturque nihil sine voce, volatqu8 
Absque ope pennarum, et graditur sine cruribus ullis 
Absque loco motuque nihil per inane vagatur. 
Human o generi utilius nihil arte medendi. 
Ne rhombos, igitur, neu Thessala murmura tentet 
Idalia vacuum trajectus arundine pectus, 
Neu legat Idaso Dictaeum in vertice gramen. 
Vulneribus saevi nihil auxiliatur amoris. 
Vexerit et quemvis trans moestas portitor uudas, 
Ad superos imo nihil hunc revocabit ab orco. 
Inferni nihil iuflectit praecordia regis. 
Parcarumque colos, et inexorabile pensum. 
Obruta Phlegrais campis Titania pubes 
Fulmineo sensit nihil esse potentius ictu ; 
Forrigitur magui nihil extra moenia mundi : 
Diique nihil metuunt. Quid longo carmine plura 
Commemorem 1 Virtute nihil prsestantius ipsa, 
Splendidius nihil est ; nihil est Jove denique majus. 
Sed tempus finem argutis imponere nugis 
Ne tibi si multa laudem mea carmina charta, 
De nihilo nihili pariant fastidia versus. 



ROSCOMMON. 



Wentworth D lion, Earl of Roscommon, 
was the son of James Dillon, and Elizabeth 
Wentworth, sister to the Earl of Strafford. He 
was born in Ireland * during the lieutenancy of 
Strafford, who being both his uncle and his god- 
father, gave him his own surname. His father, 
the third Earl of Roscommon, had been con- 
verted by Usher to the protestant religion j f 



* The Biog. Britan. says, probably about the year 
1632 ; but this is inconsistent with the date of Straf- 
ford's viceroyalty in the following page. — C. 

t It was his grandfather, Sir Robert Dillon, second 
Earl of Roscommon, who was converted from po- 
pery, and his conversion is recited in the patent of 
Sir James, the first Earl of Roscommon, as one of the 
grounds of his creation.— Ma lone. 



and when the popish rebellion broke out, Straf- 
ford thinking the family in great danger from 
the fury of the Irish, sent for his godson, and 
placed him at his own seat in Yorkshire, where 
he was instructed in Latin ; which he learned 
so as to write it with purity and elegance, 
though he was never able to retain the rules of 
grammar. 

Such is the account given by Mr. Fenton, 
from whose notes on Waller most of this ac- 
count must be borrowed, though I know not 
whether all that he relates is certain. The in- 
structor whom he assigns to Roscommon, is one 
Dr. Hall, by whom he cannot mean the famous 
Hall, then an old man and a bishop. 

When the storm broke out upon Strafford, 
1 



62 



R O S C O M M O N 



his house was a shelter no longer ; and Dillon, 
by the advice of Usher, was sent to Caen, where 
the protestants had then a university, and con- 
tinued his studies under Bochart. 

Young Dillon, who was sent to study under 
Bochart, and who is represented as having al- 
ready made great proficiency in literature, could 
not be more than nine years old. Strafford 
went to govern Ireland in 1GS3, and was put to 
death eight years afterwards. That he was sent 
to Caen is certain ; that he was a great scholar 
may be doubted. 

At Caen he is said to have had some preter- 
natural intelligence of bis father's death. 

" The Lord Roscommon, being a boy of ten 
Jrears of age, at Caen, in Normandy, one day 
was, as it were, madly extravagant in playing, 
leaping, getting over the tables, boards, &c. He 
was wont to be sober enough; they said, God gran t 
this bodes no ill-luck to him ! In the heat of 
this extravagant fit he cries out, ' My father is 
dead !' A fortnight after, news came from Ire- 
land that his father was dead. This account 
I had from Mr, Knolles, who was his governor, 
and then with him— since secretary to the Earl 
of Strafford ; and I have heard his Lordship's 
relations confirm the same."— Aubrey's Mis- 
cellany. 

The present age is very little inclined to fa- 
vour any accounts of this kind, nor will the 
name of Aubrey much recommend it to credit ; 
it ought not, however, to be omitted, because 
better evidence of a fact cannot easily be found 
than is here offered ; and it must be by preserv- 
ing such relations that we may at last judge how 
much they are to be regarded. If we stay to 
examine this account, we shall see difficulties on 
both sides ; here is the relation of a fact given by 
a man who had no interest to deceive, and who 
could not be deceived himself; and here is, on 
the other hand, a miracle which produces no 
effect; the order of nature is interrupted, to dis- 
cover not a future but only a distant event, the 
knowledge of which is of no use to him to whom 
it is revealed. Between these difficulties what 
way shall be found? Is reason or testimony 
to be rejected? I believe what Osborne says of 
an appearance of sanctity may be applied to such 
impulses or anticipations as this : " Do not 
wholly slight them, because they may be true ; 
but do not wholly trust them, because they may 
be false." 

The state both of England and Ireland was 
at this time such, that he who was absent from 
either country had very little temptation to re- 
turn ; and therefore Roscommon, when he 
left Caen, travelled into Italy, and amused 
himself with its antiquities, and particularly 
with medals, in which he acquired uncommon 
skill. 

At the Restoration, with the other friends of 
monarchy, he came to England, was made cap- 



tain of the band of pensioners, and learned so 
much of the dissoluteness of the court, that he 
addicted himself immoderately to gaming, by 
which he was engaged in frequent quarrels, and 
which undoubtedly brought upon him its usual 
concomitants, extravagance and distress. 

After some time, a dispute about part of his 
estate forced him into Ireland, where he was 
made by the Duke of Ormond captain of the 
guards, and met with an adventure thus related 
by Fenton : — 

" He was at Dublin as much as ever distem- 
pered with the same fatal affection for play, 
which engaged him in one adventure that well 
deserves to be related. As he returned to his 
lodgings from a gaming-table, he was attacked 
in the dark by three ruffians, who "were employ- 
ed to assassinate him. The Earl defended him- 
self with so much resolution, that he despatched 
one of the aggressors : whilst a gentleman, acci- 
dentally passing that way, interposed, and dis- 
armed another : the third secured himself by 
flight. This generous assistant was a disbanded 
officer, of a good family and fair reputation; 
who, by what we call the partiality of fortune, 
to avoid censuring the iniquities of the times, 
wanted even a plain suit of clothes to make a 
decent appearance at the Castle. But his Lord- 
ship, on this occasion, presenting him to the 
Duke of Ormond, with great importunity pre- 
vailed with his Grace, that he might resign his 
post of captain of the guards to his friend ; 
which for about three years the gentleman en- 
joyed, and, upon his death, the Duke returned 
the commission to his generous benefactor." 

When he had finished his business, he return- 
ed to London : was made master of the horse to 
the Dutchess of York ; and married the Lady 
Frances, daughter to the Earl of Burlington, 
and wsidow of Colonel Courteney.* 

He now busied his mind with literary pro- 
jects, and formed the plan for a society for refin- 
ing our language and fixing its standard; "in 
imitation," says Fenton, " of those learned and 
polite societies with which he had been acquaint- 
ed abroad." In this design his friend Dryden 
is said to have assisted him. 

The same design, it is well known, was re- 
vived by Dr. Swift in the ministry of Oxford ; 
but it has never since been publicly mentioned, 
though at that time great expectations were 
formed by some of its establishment and its ef- 
fects. Such a society might, perhaps, without 
much difficulty, be collected; but that it would 
produce what is expected from it may be doubt- 



* He was married to Lady Frances Boyle, in April, 
1662. By this lady he had no issue. He married se- 
condly, 10th Nov. 1674, Isabella, daughter of Matthew 
Boynton, of Barmston, in Yorkshire.— Malone. 



ROSCOMMON. 



63 



The Italian academy seems to have obtained 
its end. The language was refined, and so fixed 
that it has changed but little. The French aca- 
demy thought that they refined their language, 
and doubtless thought rightly; but the event 
has not shown that they fixed it ; for the French 
of the present time is very different from that of 
the last century. 

In this country an academy could be expected 
to do but little. If an academician's place were 
profitable, it would be given by interest ; if at- 
tendance were gratuitous, it would be rarely 
paid, and no man would endure the least dis- 
gust. Unanimity is impossible, and debate 
would separate the assembly. 

But suppose the philological decree made and 
promulgated, what would be its authority ? In 
absolute governments, there is sometimes a ge- 
neral reverence paid to all that has the sanction 
of power, and the countenance of greatness. 
Plow little this is the state of our country needs 
not be told. We live in an age in which it is a 
kind of public sport to refuse all respect that 
cannot be enforced. The edicts of an English 
academy would probably be read by many, only 
that they might be sure to disobey them. 

That our language is in perpetual danger of 
corruption cannot be denied ; but what preven- 
tion can be found ? The present manners of the 
nation would deride authority; and therefore 
nothing is left but that every writer should cri- 
ticise himself. 

All hopes of new literary institutions were 
quickly suppressed by the contentious turbulence 
of King James's reign ; and Roscommon, fore- 
seeing that some violent concussion of the state 
was at hand, purposed to retire to Rome, alleg- 
ing, that " it was best to sit near the chimney 
when the chamber smoked;" a sentence, of 
which the application seems not very clear. 

His departure was delayed by the gout ; and 
be was so impatient either of hinderance or of 
pain, that he submitted himself to a French em- 
piric, who is said to have repelled the disease 
into his bowels. 

At the moment in which he expired, he utter- 
ed, with an energy of voice that expressed the 
most fervent devotion, two lines of his own 
version of " Dies Irse :— 

My God, my Father, and my Friend, 
Do not forsake me in my end. 

He died in 1684, and was buried with great 
pomp in Westminster Abbey. 

His poetical character is given by Mr. Fen- 
ton : — 

" In his writings," says Fenton, " we view 
the image of a mind which was naturally seri- 
ous and solid ; richly furnished and adorned 
with all the ornaments of learning, unaffectedly 



disposed in the most regular and elegant order. 
His imagination might have probably been more 
fruitful and sprightly, if his judgment had been 
less severe. But that severity (delivered in a 
masculine, clear, succinct style) contributed to 
make him so eminent in the didactical manner, 
that no man, with justice, can affirm he was 
ever equalled by any of our nation, without con- 
fessing at the same time that he is inferior to 
none. In some other kinds of writing his ge- 
nius seems to have wanted fire to attain the point 
of perfection ; but who can attain it ?" 

From this account of the riches of his mind, 
who would not imagine that they had been dis- 
played in large volumes and numerous perform- 
ances? Who would not, after the perusal of 
this character, be surprised to find that all the 
proofs of this genius, and knowledge, and judg- 
ment, are not sufficient to form a single book, or 
to appear otherwise than in conjunction with 
the works of some other writer of the same petty 
size ?* But thus it is that characters are writ- 
ten : we know somewhat, and we imagine the 
rest. The observation, that his imagination 
would probably have been more fruitful and 
sprightly, if his judgment had been less severe, 
may be answered by a remarker somewhat in- 
clined to cavil, by a contrary supposition, that 
his judgment would probably have been less se- 
vere, if his imagination had been more fruitful. 
It is ridiculous to oppose judgment to imagina- 
tion ; for it does not appear that men have ne- 
cessarily less of one as they have more of the 
other. 

We must allow of Roscommon, what Fenton 
has not mentioned so distinctly as he ought, and 
what is yet very much to his honour, that he is, 
perhaps, the only correct writer in verse before 
Addison : and that, if there are not so many or 
so great beauties in his compositions as in those 
of some contemporaries, there are at least fewer 
faults. Nor is this his highest praise ; for Mr. 
Pope has celebrated him as the only moral writ- 
er of King Charles's reign :— 

Unhappy Dryden ! in all Charles's days, 
Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays. 

His great work is his " Essay on Translated 



* They were published, together with those of 
Duke, in an octavo volume, in 1717. The editor, 
whoever he was, professes to have taken great care 
to procure and insert all of his Lordship's poems 
that are truly genuine. The truth of this assertion is 
flatly denied by the author of an account of Mr. John 
Pomfret, prefixed to his remains ; who asserts, that 
the Prospect of Death was written by that person 
many years after Lord Roscommon's decease ; as, 
alsc, that the paraphrase of the Prayer of Jeremy 
was written by a gentleman of the name of South* 
court, living in the year 1724.— H, 



6i 



ROSCOMMON. 



Verse;" of which Dryden writes thus in his 
preface to his " Miscellanies:"— 

" It was my Lord Roscommon's « Essay on 
Translated Verse,' " says Dryden, " which 
made me uneasy, till I tried whether or no 
I was capable of following his rules, and of 
reducing the speculation into practice. For 
many a fair precept in poetry is like a seeming 
demonstration in mathematics, very specious in 
the diagram, but failing in the mechanic opera- 
tion. I think I have generally observed his in- 
structions : I am sure my reason is sufficiently 
convinced both of their truth and usefulness ; 
which, in other words, is to confess no less a 
vanity than to pretend that I have, at least, in 
some places, made examples to his rules." 

This declaration of Dryden will, I am afraid, 
be found little more than one of those cursory 
civilities which one author pays to another ; for 
when the sum of Lord Roscommon's precepts 
is collected, it will not be easy to discover how 
they can qualify their reader for a better per- 
formance of translation than might have been 
attained by his own reflections. 

lie that can abstract his mind from the ele- 
gance of the poetry, and confine it to the sense 
of the precepts, will find no other direction than 
that the author should be suitable to the trans- 
lator's genius ; that he should be such as may 
deserve a translation ; that he who intends to 
translate him should endeavour to understand 
him ; that perspicuity should be studied, and 
unusual and uncouth names sparingly inserted ; 
and that the style of the original should be co- 
pied in its elevation and depression. These are 
the rules that are celebrated as so definite and 
important ; and for the delivery of which to 
mankind so much honour has been paid. Ros- 
common has indeed deserved his praises, had 
they been given with discernment, and bestowed 
not on the rules themselves, but the art with 
which they are introduced, and the decorations 
with which they are adorned. 

The " Essay," though generally excellent, is 
not without its faults. The story of the Quack, 
borrowed from Boileau, was not worth the im- 
portation ; he has confounded the British and 
Saxon mythology : — 

I grant that from seme mossy idol oak, 

III double rhymes, our Tkor and Woden spoke. 

The oak, as I think Gildon has observed, be- 
longed to the British druids, and Thor and Wo- 
den were Saxon deities. Of the double rhymes, 
which he so liberally supposes, he certainly had 
no knowledge. 

His interposition of a long paragraph of blank 
verses is unwarrantably licentious. Latin poets 
might as well have introduced a series of iambics 
among their heroics. 

His next work is the translation of the " Art 
of Poetry;" "A'hich has received, in jyy opinion, 



not less praise than it deserves. Blank verse, 
left merely to its numbers, has little operation 
either on the ear or mind : it can hardly sup- 
port itself without bold figures and striking ima- 
ges . A poem frigidly didactic, without rhyme, 
is so near to prose, that the reader only scorns 
it for pretending to be verse. 

Having disentangled himself from the diffi- 
culties of rhyme, he may justly be expected to 
give the sense of Horace with great exactness, 
and to suppress no subtlety of sentiment for the 
difficulty of expressing it. This demand, hoAV- 
ever, his translation will not satisfy; what he 
found obscure, I do not know that he has ever 
cleared. 

Among his smaller works the " Eclogue of 
Virgil" and the " Dies Irse" are well translated; 
though the best line in the " Dies Iree" is bor- 
rowed from Dryden. In return, succeeding 
poets have borrowed from Roscommon. 

In the verses on the Lap-dog, the pronouns 
thou and you are offensively confounded ; and 
the turn at the end is from Waller. 

His versions of the two odes of Horace are 
made with great liberty, which is not recom- 
pensed by much elegance or vigour. 

His political verses are sprightly, and when 
they were written must have been very po- 
pular. 

Of the scene of " Guarini" and the prologue 
of " Pompey," Mrs. Philips, in her letters to 
Sir Charles Cotterel, has given the history. 

" Lord Roscommon," says she, "is certainly 
one of the most promising young noblemen in 
Ireland. He has paraphrased a psalm admira- 
bly ; and a scene of " Pastor Fido" very finely, 
in some places much better than Sir Richard 
Fanshaw. This was undertaken merely in com- 
pliment to me, who happened to say that it was 
the best scene in Italian, and the worst in Eng- 
lish. He was only two hours about it. It be- 
gins thus : — 

" Dear happy groves, and you the dark retreat 
Cf silent horror, Rest's eternal seat." 

From these lines, which are since somewhat 
mended, it appears that he did not think a work 
of two hours fit to endure the eye of criticism 
without revisal. 

When Mrs. Philips was in Ireland, some la- 
dies that had seen her translation of" Pompey" 
resolved to bring it on the stage at Dublin ; and, 
to promote their design, Lord Roscommon gave 
them a prologue, and Sir Edward Dering an 
Epilogue; "which," says she, "are the best 
performances of those kinds I ever saw." If 
this is not criticism, it is at least gratitude. The 
thought of bringing Caesar and Pompey into 
Ireland, the only country over which Caesar 
never had any power, is lucky. 

Of Roscommon's works the judgment of thw 



OTWAY. 



65 



public seems to be right. He is elegant, but 
not great; he never labours after exquisite 
beauties, and he seldom falls into gross faults. 
His versification is smooth, but rarely vigorous ; 



and his rhymes are remarkably exact. He im 
proved taste, if he did not enlarge knowledge, 
and may be numbered among the benefactors to 
English literature. * 



OTWAY, 



Of Thomas Otway, one of the first names in 
the English drama, little is known ; nor is there 
any part of that little which his biographer can 
take pleasure in relating. 

He was born at Trottin, in Sussex, March 3, 
1651, the son of Mr. Humphry Otway, rector 
of Woolbeding. From Winchester-school, where 
he was educated, he was entered, in 1669, a 
commoner of Christ-church ; but left the uni- 
versity without a degree, whether for want of 
money, or from impatience of academical re- 
straint, or mere eagerness to mingle with the 
world, is not known. 

It seems likely that he was in hope of being 
busy and conspicuous; for he went to London, 
and commenced player ; but found himself un- 
able to gain any reputation on the stage.f 

This kind of inability he shared with Shak- 
speare and Jonson, as he shared likewise some 
of their excellences. It seems reasonable to ex- 
pect that a great dramatic poet should without 
difficulty become a great actor; that he who 
can feel, could express ; that he who can excite 
passion, should exhibit with great readiness :ts 
external modes : but since experience has fully 
proved, that of those powers, whatever be their 
affinity, one may be possessed in a great degree 
by him who has very little of the other ; it must 
be allowed that they depend upon different fa- 
culties, or on different use of the same faculty ; 
that the actor must have a pliancy of mien, a 
flexibility of countenance, and a variety of tones, 
which the poet may be easily supposed to want ; 
or that the attention of the poet and the player 
have been differently employed : the one has 
been considering thought, and the other action ; 
one has watched the heart, and the other con- 
templated the face. 

Though he could not gain much notice as a 



t In "Roscius Anglicanus," by Downes the promp- 
ter, p. 34, we learn that it was the character of the 
King, in Mrs. Behn's " Forced Marriage, or the Jea- 
lous Bridegroom," which Mr. Otway attempted to 
perform, and failed in. This event appears to have 
happened in the year 1672. — R. 



player, he felt in himself such powers as might 
qualify for a dramatic author; and in 1675, his 
twenty-fifth year, produced " Alcibiades," a 
tragedy ; whether from the Alcibiade of Pala- 
prat, I have not means to inquire. Langbaine, 
the great detector of plagiarism, is silent. 

In 1677, he published " Titus and Berenice," 
translated from Rapin, with the " Cheats of 
Scapin," from Moliere; and in 1678, " Friend- 
ship in Fashion," a comedy, which, whatever 
might be its first reception, was, upon its revival 
at Drury-lane, in 1749, hissed off the stage for 
immorality and obscenity. 

Want of morals, or of decency, did not in 
those days exclude any man from the company 
of the wealthy and the gay, if he brought with 
him any powers of entertainment ; and Otway 
is said to have been at this time a favourite 
companion of the dissolute wits. But as he 
who desires no virtue in his companion has no 
virtue in himself, those whom Otway frequent- 
ed had no purpose of doing more for him than 
to pay his reckoning. They desired only to 
drink and laugh : their fondness was without 
benevolence, and their familiarity without 
friendship. Men of wit, says one of Otway 'a 
biographers, received at that time no favour 
from the great, but to share their riots ; " from 
which they were dismissed again to their own 
narrow circumstances. Thus they languished 
in poverty, without the support of eminence." 

Some exception, however, must be made. 
The Earl of Plymouth, one of King Charles 
natural sons, procured for him a cornet's com* 
mission in some troops then sent into Flanders. 
But Otway did not prosper in his military 
character : for he soon left his commission be- 
hind him, whatever was the reason, and came 
back to London in extreme indigence ; which 
Rochester mentions with merciless insolence in 
the " Session of the Poets:"— 

* This Life was originally written by Dr. Johnson 
in the " Gentleman's Magazine" for May, 1748. It 
then had notes, which are now incorporated with the 
text.— C. 



66 



OTVVAY. 



j 



Tom Otway came next, Tom Shadwell's dear zany, 
And swears for heroics he writes best of any ; 
Don Carlos his pockets so amply had fill'd, 
That his mange was quite cured, and his lice were 

all kill'd. 
But Apollo had seen his face on the stage, 
And prudently did not think fit to engage 
The scum of a play-house, for the prop of an age 

" Don Carlos," from which he is represented 
as having received so much benefit, was played 
in 1675. It appears, by the lampoon, to have 
had great success, and is said to have been played 
thirty nights together. This, however, it is 
reasonable to doubt;* as so long a continuance 
of one play upon the stage is a very wide devia- 
tion from the practice of that time ; when the 
ardour for theatrical entertainments was not 
yet diffused through the whole people, and the 
audience, consisting of nearly the same persons, 
could be drawn together only by variety. 

The " Orphan" was exhibited in 1680. This 
is one of the few plays that keep possession of 
the stage, and has pleased for almost a century, 
through all the vicissitudes of dramatic fashion. 
Of this play nothing new can easily be said. 
It is a domestic tragedy drawn from middle life. 
Its whole power is upon the affections ; for it 
is not written with much comprehension of 
thought, or elegance of expression. But if the 
heart is interested, many other beauties may be 
wanting, yet not be missed. 

The same year produced " The History and 
Fall of Caius Marias;" much of which is bor- 
rowed from the " Romeo and Juliet " of Shak- 
speare. 

In 1683f was published the first, and next 
year| the second, parts of " The Soldier's For- 
tune," two comedies now forgotten ; and in 
1685 § his last and greatest dramatic work, 
" Venice Preserved," a tragedy which still con- 
tinues to be one of the favourites of the public, 
notwithstanding the want of morality in the 
original design, and the despicable scenes of vile 
oomedy || with which he has diversified his tragic 
action. By comparing this with his " Orphan," 
it will appear that his images were by time be- 

* This doubt is indeed very reasonable. I know 
not where it is said that "Don Carlos" was acted 
thirty nights together. "Wherever it is said, it is 
untrue. Dowries, who is perfectly good authority 
on this point, informs us that it was performed ten 
days successively. — Malone. 

t 1681. J 1684. $ 1682. 

|j The "despicable scenes of vile comedy" can be 
no bar to its being a favourite of the public, as they 
are always omitted in the representation.— J. B. 



come stronger, and his language more energetic. 
The striking passages are in every mouth ; and 
the public seems to judge rightly of the faults 
and excellences of this play, that it is the work 
of a man not attentive to decency, nor zealous 
for virtue ; but of one who conceived forcibly, 
and drew originally, by consulting nature in 
his own breast. 

Together with those plays he wrote the poems 
which are in the present collection, and trans- 
lated from the French the "History of the 
Triumvirate." 

All this was performed before he was thirty- 
four years old; for he died April 14, 1685, in a 
manner which I am unwilling to mention. 
Having been compelled by his necessities to con- 
tract debts, and hunted, as is supposed, by the 
teiriers of the law, he retired to a public house 
on Tower-hill, where he is said to have died of 
want ; or, as it is related by one of his biogra- 
phers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece 
of bread which charity had supplied. He went 
out, as is reported, almost naked, in the rage of 
hunger, and, finding a gentleman in a neigh- 
bouring coffee-house, asked him for a shilling. 
The gentleman gave him a guinea ; and Otway 
going away bought a roll, and was choked with 
the first mouthful. All this, I hope, is not true ; 
and there is this ground of better hope, that 
Pope, who lived near enough to be well inform- 
ed, relates in Spence's " Memorials," that he 
died of a fever caught by violent pursuit of a 
thief that had robbed one of his friends. But 
that indigence, and its concomitants, sorrow and 
despondency, pressed hard upon him, has never 
been denied, whatever immediate cause might 
bring him to the grave. 

Of the poems which the present collection ad- 
mits, the longest is the " Poet's Complaint of 
his Muse," part of which I do not understand; 
and in that which is less obscure I find little to 
commend. The language is often gross, and the 
numbers are harsh. Otway had not much cul- 
tivated versification, nor much replenished his 
mind with general knowledge. His principal 
power was in moving the passions, to which 
Dryden* in his latter years left an illustrious 
testimony. He appears by some of his verses 
to have been a zealous loyalist, and had what 
was in those times the common reward of loyal- 
ty ; he lived and died neglected. 



* In his preface to Fresnoy's " Art of Painting.'* 
-Dr. J 



WALLER. 



Edmund Waller was born on the third of 
March, 1605, at Colshill, in Hertfordshire. His 
father was Robert Waller, Esq. of Agmondes- 
ham, in Buckinghamshire, whose family was 
originally a branch of the Kentish Wallers ; and 
his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, 
of Hampden in the same county, and sister to 
Hampden, the zealot of rebellion. 

His father died while he was yet an infant, 
but left him a yearly income of three thousand 
five hundred pounds; which, rating together 
the value of money and the customs of life, we 
may reckon more than equivalent to ten thou- 
sand at the present time. 

He was educated by the care of his mother, 
at Eton ; and removed afterwards to King's Col- 
lege, in Cambridge. He was sent to parliament 
in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth, year, 
and frequented the court of James the First, 
where he heard a very remarkable conversation, 
which the writer of the Life prefixed to his 
Works, who seems to have been well informed 
of facts, though he may sometimes err in chro- 
nology, has delivered as indubitably certain : — 

" He found Dr. Andrews, bishop of Win- 
chester, and Dr. Neale, bishop of Durham, 
standing behind his Majesty's chair ; and there 
happened something extraordinary," continues 
this writer, " in the conversation those prelates 
had with the King, on which Mr. Waller did 
often reflect. His Majesty asked the bishops, 
' My Lords, cannot I take my subjects' money 
when I want it, without all this formality of 
parliament ?' The Bishop of Durham readily 
answered, ' God forbid, Sir, but you should : 
you are the breath of our nostrils.' Whereupon 
the King turned, and said to the Bishop of Win- 
chester, ' Well, my Lord, what say you?' ' Sir,' 
replied the Bishop, ' I have no skill to judge of 
parliamentary cases.' The King answered, 
' No put-offs, my Lord; answer me presently.' 
' Then, Sir,' said be, ' I think it is lawful for 
you to take my brother Neale's money ; for he 
offers it.' Mr. Waller said, the company was 
pleased with this answer, and the wit of it seem- 
ed to affect the King; for, a certain lord coming 
in soon after, his Majesty cried out, ■ Oh, my 
Lord, they say you lig with my lady.' ' No, 
Sir,' says his Lordship in confusion; 'but I like 
her company, because she has so much wit.' 
' Why then/ says the King, ' do you not lig 
with my Lord of Winchester there?' " 

Waller's political and poetical life began near- 



ly together. In his eighteenth year he wrote 
the poem that appears first in his works, on the 
"Prince's Escape at St. Andero:" a piece 
which justifies the observation made by one of 
his editors, that he attained, by a felicity like 
instinct, a style which, perhaps, will never be 
obsolete : and that, " were we to judge only by 
the wording, we could not know what was 
wrote at twenty, and what at four-score." His 
vei'sification was, in his first essay, such as it 
appears in his last performance. By the perusal 
of Fairfax's translation of " Tasso," to which, 
as Dryden* relates, he confessed himself indebt- 
ed for the smoothness of his numbers, and by 
his own nicety of observation, he had already 
formed such a system of metrical harmony as he 
never afterwards much needed, or much endea- 
voured to improve. Denham corrected his num- 
bers by experience, and gained ground gradually 
upon the ruggedness of his age ; but what was 
acquired by Denham was inherited by Waller. 

The next poem, of which the subject seems to 
fix the time, is supposed by Mr. Fenton to be 
the Address to the Queen, which he considers 
as congratulating her arrival, in Waller's twen- 
tieth year. He is apparently mistaken ; for the 
mention of the nation's obligations to her fre- 
quent pregnancy, proves that it was written 
when she had brought many children. We have 
therefore no date of any other poetical produc- 
tion before that which the murder of the Duke 
of Buckingham occasioned : the steadiness with 
which the King received the news in the chapel 
deserved indeed to be rescued from oblivion. 

Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their 
own dates could have been the sudden effusion 
of fancy. In the verses on the Prince's escape, 
the prediction of his marriage with the Princess 
of France must have been written after the 
event ; in the other, the promises of the King's 
kindness to the descendants of Buckingham, 
which could not be properly praised till it had 
appeared by its effects, show that time was ta- 
ken for revision and improvement. It is not 
known that they were published till they ap- 
peared long afterwards with other poems. 

Waller was not one of those idolaters of prai se 
who cultivate their minds at the expense of their 
fortunes. Rich as he was by inheritance, he 
took care early to grow richer, by marrying Mis. 
Banks, a great heiress in the city, whom the in- 

* Preface to his " Fables."— Dr. J. 



GS 



WALLER. 



terest of the court was employed to obtain fox* 
Mr. Croft. Having brought him a son, who 
died young, and a daughter, who was after- 
wards married to Mr. Dormer, of Oxfordshire, 
she died in childbed, and left him a widower of 
about five-and-twenty, gay and wealthy, to 
please himself with another marriage. 

Being too young to resist beauty, and pro- 
bably too vain to think himself resistible, he 
fixed his heart, perhaps half fondly and hfdf am- 
bitiously, upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest 
daughter of the Earl of Leicester, whom he 
courted by all the poetry in which Sacharissa is 
celebrated ; the name is derived from the Latin 
appellation of sugar, and implies, if it means 
any thing, a spiritless mildness, and dull good- 
nature, such as excites rather tenderness than 
esteem, and such as, though always treated with 
kindness, is never honoured or admired. 

Yet he describes Sacharissa as a sublime pre- 
dominating beauty, of lofty charms, and impe- 
rious influence, on whom he looks with amaze- 
ment rather than fondness, whose chains he 
wishes, though in vain, to break, and whose 
presence is wine that inflames to madness. 

His acquaintance with this high-born dame 
gave wit no opportunity of boasting its influ- 
ence ; she was not to be subdued by the powers 
of verse, but rejected his addresses, it is said, 
with disdain, and drove him away to solace his 
disappointment with Amoret or Phillis. She 
married, in 1639, the Earl of Sunderland, who 
died at Newberry in the King's cause ; and, in 
her old age, meeting somewhere with Waller, 
asked him when he would again write such 
verses upon her : " When you are as young, 
Madam," said he, " and as handsome as you 
were then." 

In this part of his life it was that he was 
known to Clarendon, among the rest of the men 
who were eminent in that age for genius and li- 
terature ; but known so little to his advantage 
that they who read his character will not much 
condemn Sacharissa, that she did not descend 
from her rank to his embraces, nor think every 
excellence comprised in wit. 

The lady was, indeed, inexorable ; but his un- 
common qualifications, though they had no 
power upon her, recommended him to the scho- 
lars and statesmen; and undoubtedly many beau- 
ties of that time, however they might receive 
his love, were proud of his praises. Who they 
were, whom he dignifies with poetical names, 
cannot now he known. Amoret, according to 
Mr. Fenton, was the Lady Sophia Murray. 
Perhaps by traditions preserved in families more 
may be discovered. 

From the verses written at Penshurst, it has 
been collected that he diverted his disappoint- 
ment by a voyage ; and his biographers, from 
his poem on the Whales, think it not improba- 
ble that he visited the Bermudas ; but it seems 



much more likely that he should amuse himself 
■with forming an imaginary scene, than that so 
important an incident, as a visit to America, 
should have been left floating in conjectural pro- 
bability. 

From his twenty-eighth to his thirty-fifth 
year, he wrote his pieces on the reduction of 
Sallee ; on the reparation of St. Paul's ; to the 
King on his Navy ; the panegyric on the Queen- 
mother ; the two poems to the Earl of North- 
' umberland ; and perhaps others, of which the 
time cannot be discovered. 

When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa, he 
looked round him for an easier conquest, and 
gained a lady of the family of Bresse, or Breaux. 
The time of his marriage is not exactly known. 
It has not been discovered that this wife was 
won by his poetry ; nor is any thing told of her, 
but that she brought him many children. He 
doubtless praised some whom he would have been 
afraid to marry, and perhaps married one whom 
he would have been ashamed to praise. Many 
qualities contribute to domestic happiness, upon 
which poetry has no colours to bestow ; and 
many airs and sallies may delight imagination, 
which he who flatters them never can approve. 
There are charms made only for distant admi- 
ration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze. 

Of his wife, his biographers have recorded 
that she gave him five sons and eight daughters. 

During the long interval of parliament, he is 
represented as living among those with whom it 
was most honourable to converse, and enjoying 
an exuberant fortune with that independence 
and liberty of speech and conduct which wealth 
ought always to produce. He was however 
considered as the kinsman of Hampden, and 
was therefore supposed by the courtiers not to 
favour them. 

When the parliament was called m 1640, it 
appeared that Waller's political character had 
not been mistaken. The King's demand of a 
supply produced one of those noisy speeches 
which disaffection and discontent regularly dic- 
tate ; a speech filled with hyperbolical complaints 
of imaginary grievances: "They," says he, 
" who think themselves already undone, can 
never apprehend themselves in danger ; and 
they who have nothing left can never give free- 
ly." Political truth is equally in danger from 
the praises of courtiers, and the exclamation of 
patriots. 

I-Ie then proceeds to rail at the clergy, being 
sure at that time of a favourable audience. His 
topic is such as will always serve its purpose ; 
an accusation of acting and preaching only for 
preferment : and he exhorts the commons care- 
fully to "provide for their protection against jml- 
pit law. 

It always gratifies curiosity to ti /je a sentU 
ment. Waller has in his speech quoted Hooker 
in one passage ; and in another has copied him 



WALLER. 



69 



without quoting. " Religion," says Waller, 
" ought to be the first thing in our purpose and 
desires ; but that which is first in dignity is not 
always to precede in order of time ; for well- 
Toeing supposes a being; and the first impedi- 
ment which men naturally endeavour to re- 
move, is the want of those things without which 
they cannot subsist. God first assigned unto 
Adam maintenance of life, and gave him a title 
U the rest of the creatures before he appointed a 
law to observe." 

" God first assigned Adam," says Hooker, 
" maintenance of life, and then appointed him a 
law to observe.— True it is that the kingdom 
of God must be the first thing in our purpose 
and desires ; but inasmuch as a righteous life 
presupposeth life, inasmuch as to live virtuously 
it is impossible, except we live ; therefore the 
first impediment which naturally we endeavour 
to remove is penury, and want of things with- 
out which we cannot live." — Book. i. Sect. 9. 

The speech is vehement ; but the great posi- 
tion, that grievances ought to be redressed be- 
fore supplies are granted, is agreeable enough to 
law and reason : nor was Waller, if his biogra- 
pher may be credited, such an enemy to the 
King, as not to wish his distresses lightened ; 
for he relates, " that the King sent particularly 
to Waller, to second his demand of some sub- 
sidies to pay off the army ; and Sir Henry Vane 
objecting against first voting a supply, because 
the King would not accept unless it came up to 
his proportion, Mr. Waller spoke earnestly to 
Sir Thomas Jermyn, comptroller of the house- 
hold, to save his master from the effects of so 
bold a falsity : ' for,' he said, ' I am but a coun- 
try gentleman, and cannot pretend to know the 
King's mind : ' but Sir Thomas durst not con- 
tradict the secretary ; and his son, the Earl of 
St. Alban's, afterwards told Mr. Waller, that 
his father's cowardice ruined the King.'* 

In the Long Parliament, which, unhappily 
for the nation, met Nov. 3, 1640, Waller re- 
presented Agmondesham the third time; and 
was considered by the discontented party as a 
man sufficiently trusty and acrimonious to be 
employed in managing the prosecution of Judge 
Crawley, for his opinion in favour of ship- 
money ; and his speech shows that he did not 
disappoint their expectations. He was probably 
the more ardent, as his uncle Hampden had 
been particularly engaged in the dispute, and, 
by a sentence which seems generally to be 
thought unconstitutional, particularly injured. 

He was not however a bigot to his party, nor 
adopted all their opinions. When the great 
question, whether Episcopacy ought to be abo- 
lished, was debated, he spoke against the innova- 
tion so coolly, so reasonably, and so firmly, that 
it is not without great injury to his name that 
his speech, which was as follows, has been 
Ititherto omitted in his works ; 



* " There is no doubt but the sense of what 
this nation had suffered from the present bishops 
hath produced these complaints; and the ap- 
prehensions men have of suffering the like in 
time to come, make so many desire the taking 
away of Episcopacy : but I conceive it is pos- 
sible that we may not now take a right measure 
of the minds of the people by their petitions ; 
for, when they subscribed them, the bishops 
were armed with a dangerous commission of 
making new canons, imposing new oaths, and 
the like ; but now we have disarmed them of 
that power. These petitioners lately did look 
upon Episcopacy as a beast armed with horns 
and claws ; but now that we have cut and pared 
them (and may, if Ave see cause, yet reduce it 
into narrower bounds), it may, perhaps, be 
more agreeable. However, if they be still in 
passion, it becomes us soberly to consider the 
right use and antiquity thereof; . and not to com- 
ply further with a general desire, than may 
stand with a general good. 

" We have already showed, that Episcopacy 
and the evils thereof are mingled like water and 
oil ; we have also, in part, severed them ; but I 
believe you will find, that our laws and the 
present government of the church are mingled 
like wine and water ; so insepai-able, that the ab- 
rogation of, at least, a hundred of our laws is de- 
sired in these petitions. I have often heard a noble 
answer of the Lords commended in this House, 
to a proposition of like nature, but of less con- 
sequence; they gave no other reason of their 
refusal but this, Nolumus mutare Leges Anglice : 
it was the bishops who so answered then ; and 
it would become the dignity and wisdom of this 
House to answer the people now, with a No- 
lumus mutare. 

" I see some are moved with a number of 
hands against the bishops ; which, I confess, 
rather inclines me to their defence ; for I look 
upon Episcopacy as a counterscarp, or out- 
work ; which, if it be taken by this assault of 
the people, and withal this mj^stery once re- 
vealed, ' That we must deny them nothing 
when they ask it thus in troops,' we may, in 
the next place, have as hard a task to defend 
our property, as we have lately had to recover 
it from the prerogative. If, by multiplying 
hands and petitions, they prevail for an equality 
in things ecclesiastical, the next demand, per- 
haps, may be Lex Agraria, the like equality in 
things temporal. 

" The Roman story teils us, { That when the 
people began to flock about the senate, and were 
more curious to direct and know what was done 
than to obey, that commonwealth soon came to 
ruin : their Legem rogare grew quickly to be a 



* This speech has been retrieved, from a papa? 
printed at that time, by the writers of the Parlia- 
mentary History. — Dr. 3. 
K 



70 



WALLER. 



Legem ferre ; and after, when their legions had 
found that they could make a dictator, they 
never suffered the senate to have a voice any 
more in such election.' 

"If these great innovations proceed, I shall 
expect a flat and level in learning too, as well 
as in church preferments: Honos alit Artes. 
And though it be true that grave and pious men 
do study for learning sake, and embrace virtue 
for itself; yet it is true that youth, which is the 
season when learning is gotten, is not without 
ambition ; nor will ever take pains to excel in 
any thing, when there is not some hope of ex- 
celling others in reward and dignity. 

" There are two reasons chiefly alleged against 
our church-government. 

" First, Scripture, which, as some men think, 
points out another form. 

" Second, The abuses of the present superiors. 

" For Scripture, I will not dispute it in this 
place ; but I am confident that, whenever an 
equal division of lands and goods shall be desired, 
there will be as many places in Scripture found 
out, which seem to favour that, as there are 
now alleged against the prelacy or preferment 
of the church. And, as for abuses, where you 
are now in the remonstrance told what this and 
that poor man hath suffered by the bishops, you 
may be presented with a thousand instances of 
poor men that have received hard measure 
from their landlords ; and of worldly goods 
abused, to the injury of others, and disadvan- 
tage of the owners. 

" And therefore, Mr. Speaker, my humble 
motion is, That we may settle men's minds 
herein ; and, by a question, declare our resolu- 
tion, to reform, that is, not to abolish Ejnscopacy.'''' 

It cannot but be wished that he, who could 
speak in this manner, had been able to act with 
spirit and uniformity. 

When the Commons began to set the royal 
authority at open defiance, Waller is said to 
have withdrawn from the House, and to have 
returned with the King's permission ; and, 
when the King set up his standard, he sent 
him a thousand broad pieces. He continued, 
however, to sit in the rebellious conventicle; 
but "spoke," says Clarendon, "with great 
sharpness and freedom, which, now there was 
no danger of being outvoted, was not restrained ; 
and therefore used as an argument against those 
who were gone upon pretence that they were 
not suffered to deliver their opinion freely in 
the House, which could not be believed, when 
all men knew what liberty Mr. Waller took, 
and spoke every day with impunity against the 
sense and proceedings of the House." 

Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the 
commissioners nominated by the parliament to 
treat with the King at Oxford ; and when they 
were presented, the King said to him, " Though 
you are the last, you are not the lowest nor the 



least in my favour." Whitlock, who, being 
another of the commissioners, "was witness of 
this kindness, imputes it to the King's know- 
ledge of the plot, in which Waller appeared af- 
terwards to have been engaged against the par 
liament. Fenton, with equal probability, be- 
lieves that this attempt to promote the royal 
cause arose from his sensibility of the King's 
tenderness. Whitlock says nothing of his 
behaviour at Oxford : he was sent with several 
others to add pomp to the commission, but was 
not one of those to whom the trust of treating 
was imparted. 

The engagement, known by the name of Wal- 
ler's plot, was soon afterwards discovered. Wal- 
ler had a brother-in-law, Tomkyns, who was 
clerk of the Queen's council, and at the same 
time had a very numerous acquaintance, and 
great influence, in the city. Waller and he, 
conversing with great confidence, told both their 
own secrets and those of their friends; and, 
surveying the wide extent of their conversation, 
imagined that they found in the majority of all 
ranks great disapprobation of the violence of the 
Commons, and unwillingness to continue the 
war. They knew that many favoured the 
King, whose fear concealed their loyalty ; and 
many desired peace, though they durst not op- 
pose the clamour for war ; and they imagined 
that, if those who had these good intentions 
could be informed of their own strength, and 
enabled by intelligence to act together, they 
might overpower the fury of sedition, by refus- 
ing to comply with the ordinance for the 
twentieth part, and the other taxes levied for the 
support of the rebel army, and by uniting great 
numbers in a petition for peace. They proceed- 
ed with great caution. Three only met in one 
place, and no man was allowed to impart the 
plot to more than two others; so that, if any 
should be suspected or seized, more than three 
could not be endangered. 

Lord Conway joined in the design, and, 
Clarendon imagines, incidentally mingled, as he 
was a soldier, some martial hopes or projects, 
which however were only mentioned, the main 
design being to bring the loyal inhabitants to 
the knowledge of each other; for which purpose 
there was to be appointed one in every district, 
to distinguish the friends of the King, the ad- 
herents to the parliament, and the neutrals. 
How far they proceeded does not appear; the 
result of their inquiry, as Pym declared,* was, 
that within the walls, for one that was for the 
royalists, there were three against them ; but 
that without the walls, for one that was against 
them, there were five*»for them. Whether this 
was said from knowledge or guess, was perhaps 
never inquired. 



Parliamentary History, Vol. xii. — Dr. J. 



WALLER. 



7i 



It is the opinion of Clarendon, that in Wal- 
ler's plan no violence or sanguinary resistance 
was comprised ; that he intended only to abate 
the confidence of the rebels by public declara- 
tions, and to weaken their power by an oppo- 
sition to new supplies. This, in calmer times, 
and more than this, is done without fear ; but 
such was the acrimony of the Commons, that 
no method of obstructing them was safe. 

About this time another design was formed 
by Sir Nicholas Crispe, a man of loyalty that 
deserves perpetual remembrance : when he was 
a merchant in the city, he gave and procured 
the King, in his exigencies, a hundred thousand 
pounds ; and, when he was driven from the 
Exchange, raised a regiment, and commanded 
it. 

Sir Nicholas flattered himself with an opin- 
ion, that some provocation would so much 
exasperate, or some opportunity so much en- 
courage, the King's friends in the city, that 
they would break out in open resistance, and 
would then want only a lawful standard, and 
an authorised commander ; and extorted from 
the King, whose judgment too frequently 
yielded to importunity, a commission of array, 
directed to such as he thought proper to nomi- 
nate, which was sent to London by the Lady 
Aubigney. She knew not what she carried, 
but was to deliver it on the communication of a 
certain token which Sir Nicholas imparted. 

This commission could be only intended to 
lie ready till the time should require it. To 
have attempted to raise any forces, would have 
been certain destruction; it could be of use 
only when the forces should appear. This was, 
however, an act preparatory to martial hostility. 
Crispe would undoubtedly have put an end to 
the session of parliament, had his strength been 
equal to his zeal: and out of the design of 
Crispe, which involved very little dange*r, and 
that of Waller, which was an act purely civil, 
they compounded a horrid and dreadful plot. 

The discovery of Waller's design is variously 
related. In " Clarendon's History" it is told, 
that a servant of Tomkyns, lurking behind the 
hangings, when his master was in conference 
with Waller, heard enough to qualify him for 
an informer, and carried his intelligence to 
Pym. A manuscript, quoted in the " Life of 
Waller"," relates, that "he was betrayed by his 
sister Price, and her presbyterian chaplain, 
Mr. Goode, who stole some of his papers ; and, 
if he had not strangely dreamed the night before 
that his sister had betrayed him, and thereupon 
burnt the rest of his papers by the fire that was 
in his chimney, he had certainly lost his life by 
it." The question cannot be decided. It is not 
unreasonable to believe that the men in power, 
receiving intelligence from the sister, would em- 
ploy the servant of Tomkyns to listen at the 
conference, that they might avoid an act so of- 



fensive as that of destroying the brother by the 
sister's testimony. 

The plot was published in the most terrific 
manner. 

On the 31st of May (1643,) at a solemn fast, 
when they were listening to the sermon, a mes- 
senger entered the church, and communicated 
his errand to Pym, who whispered it to others 
that were placed near him, and then went with 
them out of the church, leaving the rest in soli- 
citude and amazement. They immediately 
sent guards to proper places, and that night ap- 
prehended Tomkyns and Waller ; having yet 
traced nothing but that letters had been inter- 
cepted, from which it appears that the parlia- 
ment and the city were soon to be delivered in- 
to the hands of the cavaliers. 

They perhaps yet knew little themselves, be- 
yond some general and indistinct notices. 
" But Waller," says Clarendon, " was so con- 
founded with fear, that he confessed whatever 
he had heard, said, thought, or seen ; all that he 
knew of himself, and all that he suspected of 
others, without concealing any person of what 
degree or quality soever, or any discourse which 
he had ever upon any occasion entertained with 
them ; what such and such ladies of great hon- 
our, to whom, upon the credit of his wit and 
great reputation, he had been admitted, had 
spoke to him in their chambers upon the pro- 
ceedings in the Houses, and how they had en- 
couraged him to oppose them ; what correspon- 
dence and intercourse they had with some minis- 
ters of state at Oxford, and how they had con- 
veyed all intelligence thither." Pie accused 
the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway as co- 
operating in the transaction ; and testified that 
the Earl of Northumberland had declared him- 
self disposed in favour of any attempt that 
might check the violence of the parliament, and 
reeoncile them to the King. 

He undoubtedly confessed much which they 
could never have discovered, and perhaps some- 
what which they would wished to have been 
suppressed ; for it is inconvenient, in the con- 
flict of factions, to have that disaffection known 
which cannot safely be punished. 

Tomkyns was seized on the same night with 
Waller, and appears likewise to have partaken 
of his cowardice ; for he gave notice of Crispe's 
commission of array, of which Clarendon never 
knew how it was discovered. Tomkyns had 
been sent with the token appointed, to demand 
it from Lady Aubigney, and had buried it in 
his garden, where, by his direction, it was d\;g 
up ; and thus the rebels obtained, what Claren 
don confesses them to have had, the original 
copy. 

It can raise no wonder that they formed one 
plot out of these two designs, however remote 
from each other, when they saw the same agent 
employed in both, and found the commission of 



72 



WALLER. 



array in the hands of him who was employed 
in collecting the opinions and affections of the 
people. 

Of the plot, thus combined, they took care to 
make the most. They sent Pym among the citi- 
zens, to tell them of their imminent danger, and 
happy escape : and inform them, that the design 
was, " to seize the Lord Mayor and all the Com- 
mittee of Militia, and would not spare one of 
them." They drew up a vow and covenant, 
to be taken by every member of either House, 
by which he declared his detestation of all con- 
spiracies against the parliament, and his resolu- 
tion to detect and oppose them. They then ap- 
pointed a day of thanksgiving for this wonder- 
ful delivery ; which shut out, says Clarendon, all 
doubts whether there had been such a deliver- 
ance, and whether the plot was real or fictitious. 

On June 11, the Earl of Portland and Lord 
Conway were committed, one to the custody of 
the Mayor, and the other of the Sheriff; but 
their lands and goods were not seized. 

Waller was still to immerse himself deeper in 
ignominy. The Earl of Portland and Lord 
Conway denied the charge ; and there was no 
evidence against them but the confession of 
Waller, of which undoubtedly many would be 
inclined to question the veracity. With these 
doubts he was so much terrified, that he endea- 
voured to persuade Portland to a declaration 
like his own, by a letter extant in Fenton's edi- 
tion. " But for me," says he, " you had never 
known any thing of this business, which was 
prepared for another; and therefore I cannot 
imagine why you should hide it so far as to con- 
tract your own ruin by concealing it, and per- 
sisting unreasonably to hide that truth, which 
without you already is, and will every day, be 
made more manifest. Can you imagine your- 
self bound in honour to keep that secret, which 
is already revealed by another? or possible it 
should still be a secret, which is known to one 
of the other sex ? — If you persist to be cruel to 
yourself for their sakes who deserve it not, it 
will nevertheless be made appear, ere long, I 
fear to your ruin. Siu*ely, if I had the happi- 
ness to wait on you, I could move you to com- 
passionate both yourself and me, who, desperate 
as my case is, am desirous to die with the ho- 
nour of being known to have declared the truth. 
You have no reason to contend to hide what is 
already revealed — inconsiderately to throw away 
yourself, for the interest of others, to whom 
you are less obliged th^n you are aware of." 

This persuasion seems to have had little effect. 
Portland sent (June 29) a letter to the Lords, 
to tell them that he " is in custody, as he con- 
ceives, without any charge ; and that, by what 
Mr. Waller had threatened him with since he 
was imprisoned, he doth apprehend a very cruel, 
long, and ruinous restraint :— He therefore 
prays, that he may not find the effects of Mr. 



Waller's threats, a long and close imprison- 
ment ; but may be speedily brought to a legal 
trial, and then he is confident the vanity and 
falsehood of those informations which have been 
given against him will appear." 

Inconsequence of this letter, the Lords or- 
dered Portland and Waller to be confronted ; 
when the one repeated his charge, and the other 
his denial. The examination of the plot being 
continued (July 1,) Thinn, usher of the House 
of Lords, deposed, that Mr. Waller having had 
a conference with the Lord Portland in an up- 
per room, Lord Portland said, when he came 
down, " Do me the favour to tell my Lord 
Northumberland, that Mr. Waller has ex- 
tremely pressed me to save my own life and his, 
by throwing the blame upon the Lord Conway 
and the Earl of Northumberland." 

Waller, in his letter to Portland, tells him of 
the reasons which he could urge with resistless 
efficacy in a personal conference; but he over- 
rated his own oratory ; his vehemence, whether 
of persuasion or intreaty, was returned with 
contempt. 

One of his arguments with Portland is, that 
the plot is already known to a woman. This 
woman was doubtless Lady Aubigney, who, 
upon this occasion, was committed to custody ; 
but who, in reality, when she delivered the com- 
mission, knew not what it was. 

The parliament then proceeded against the 
conspirators, and committed their trial to a 
council of war. Tomkyns and Chaloner were 
hanged near their own doors. Tomkyns, when 
he came to die, said it was a foolish business; and 
indeed there seems to have been no hope that it 
should escape discovery; for though never more 
than three met at a time, yet a design so exten- 
sive must, by necessity, be communicated to 
many, who could not be expected to be all faith- 
ful and all prudent. Chaloner was attended at 
his execution by Hugh Peters. His crime 
was, that he had commission to raise money for 
the King ; but it appears not that the money 
was to be expended upon the advancement of 
either Crispe's or Waller's plot. 

The Earl of Northumberland, being too great 
for prosecution, was only once examined before 
the Lords. The Earl of Portland and Lord 
Conway, persisting to deny the charge, and no 
testimony but Waller's yet appearing against 
them, were, after a long imprisonment, admit- 
ted to bail. Hasel, the King's messenger, who 
carried the letters to Oxford, died the night be- 
fore his trial. Hampden escaped death, perhaps 
by the interest of his family ; but was kept in 
prison to the end of his life. They whose 
names were inserted in the commission of array 
were not capitally punished, as it could not be 
proved that they had consented to their own 
nomination ; but they were considered as ma« 
lignants, and their estates were seized 



WALLER. 



13 



" Waller, though confessedly," says Claren- 
don, " the most guilty, with incredible dissimu- 
lation affected such a remorse of conscience, that 
his trial was pat off, out- of Christian compas- 
sion, till he might recover his understanding. " 
What use he made of this interval, with what 
liberality and success he distributed flattery and 
money, and how, when he was brought (July 4) 
before the house, he confessed and lamented, 
and submitted and implored, may be read in 
the " History of the Rebellion." (B. vii.) 
The speech, to which Clarendon ascribes the 
preservation of his dear-boughl life, is insert- 
ed in his works. The great historian, however, 
seems to have been mistaken in relating that he 
prevailed in the principal part of his supplica- 
tion, not to be tried by a council of war ; for, 
according to Whitlock, he was, by expulsion 
from the House, abandoned to the tribunal 
which he so much dreaded, and, being tried and 
condemned, was reprieved by Essex ; but after a 
year's imprisonment, in which time resentment 
grew less acrimonious, paying a fine of ten thou- 
sand pounds, he was permitted to recollect him- 
self in another country. 

Of his behaviour in this part of his life, it is 
not necessary to direct the reader's opinion. 
" Let us not," says his last ingenious biograph- 
er,* " condemn him with un tempered seve- 
rity, because he was not a prodigy which the 
world hath seldom seen, because his character 
included not the poet, the orator, and the hero." 

For the place of his exile he chose France, and 
stayed some time at Roan, where his daughter 
Margaret was born, who was afterwards his fa- 
vourite, and his amanuensis. He then removed 
to Paris, where he lived with great splendour 
and hospitality ; and from time to time amused 
himself with poetry, in which he sometimes 
speaks of the rebels, and their usurpation, in the 
natural language of an honest man. 

At last it became necessary, for his support, 
to sell his wife's jewels ; and, being reduced, as 
he said, at last to tlie rump-jewel, he solicited from 
Cromwell permission to return, and obtained it 
by the interest of Colonel Scroop, to whom his 
sister was married. Upon the remains of a for- 
tune which the danger of his life had very much 
diminished, he lived at Halbarn, a house built 
by himself very near to Beaconsfield, where his 
mother resided. His mother, though related to 
Cromwell and Hampden, was zealous for the 
royal cause, and, when Cromwell visited her, used 
to reproach him; he, in return, would throw a 
napkin at her, and say he would not dispute 
with his aunt ; but finding in time that she ac- 
ted for the King, as well as talked, he made her 



* Life of Waller, prefixed to an edition of his 
Works, published, ia 1773, by Percival Stockdale. 
-C. 



a prisoner to her own daughter, in her own 
house. If he would do any thing, he could not 
do less. 

Cromwell, now Protector, received Waller, as 
his kinsman, to familiar conversation. Waller, 
as he used to relate, found him sufficiently versed 
in ancient history ; and when any of his enthu- 
siastic friends came to advise or consult him, 
could sometimes overhear him discoursing in the 
cant of the times : but, when he returned, he 
would say, " Cousin Waller, I must talk to 
these men in their own way:" and resumed 
the common style of conversation. 

Pie repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) 
by the famous " Panegyric," which has been 
always considered as the first of his poetical pro- 
ductions. His choice of encomiastic topics is 
very judicious ; for he considers Cromwell in 
his exaltation, without inquiring how he at- 
tained it ; there is consequently no mention of 
the rebel or the regicide. All the former part of 
his hero's life is veiled with shades ; and nothing 
is brought to view but the chief, the governor, 
the defender of England's honour, and the en- 
larger of her dominion. The act of violence by 
which he obtained the supreme power is lightly 
treated, and decently justified. It was certainly 
to be desired that the detestable band should be 
dissolved, which had destroyed the church, mur- 
dered the King, and filled the nation with tu- 
mult and oppression : yet Cromwell had not the 
right of dissolving them ; for all that he had be- 
fore done could be justified only by supposing 
them invested with lawful authority. But 
combinations of wickedness would overwhelm 
the world by the advantage which licentious 
principles afford, did not those who have long 
practised perfidy grow faithless to each other. 

In the poem on the war with Spain are some 
passages at least equal to the best parts of the 
" Panegyric ;" and, in the conclusion, the poet 
ventures yet a higher flight of flattery, by re-- 
commending royalty to Cromwell and the na- 
tion. Cromwell was very desirous, as appears 
from his conversation, related by Whitlock, of 
adding the title to the power of monarchy, and 
is supposed to have been withheld from it partly 
by fear of the army, and partly by fear of the 
laws, which, when he should govern by the 
name of king, would have restrained his autho- 
rity. When therefore a deputation was so- 
lemnly sent to invite him to the crown, he, after 
a long conference, refused it ; but is said to 
have fainted in his coach, when he parted from 
them. 

The poem on the death of the Protector seems 
to have been dictated by real veneration for his 
memory. EVyden and Sprat wrote on the same 
occasion ; but they were young men, struggling 
into notice, and hoping for some favour from the 
ruling party. Waller had little to expect; he 
had received nothing but his pardon from Ciom- 



74 



W A L L E R. 



well, and was not likely to ask any thing from | 
those who should succeed him. 

Soon afterwards, the Restoration supplied him 
with another subject ; and he exerted his imagi- 
nation, his elegance, and his melody, with equal 
alacrity for Charles the Second. It is not pos- : 
sible to read, without some contempt and indig- 
nation, poems of the same author, ascribing the 
highest degree of power and inety to Charles the . 
First, then transferring the same power and piety \ 
to Oliver Cromwell ; now inviting Oliver to 
take the crown, and then congratulating Charles 
the Second on his recovered right. Neither 
Cromwell nor Charles could value his testi- 
mony as the effect of conviction, or receive his 
praises as effusions of reverence ; they could con- 
sider them but as the labour of invention, and 
the tribute of dependence. 

Poets, indeed, profess fiction ; but the legiti- 
mate end of fiction is the conveyance of truth ; 
and he that has flattery ready for all whom the 
vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt, must 
be scorned as a prostituted mind, that may re- 
tain the glitter of wit, but has lost the dignity of 
virtue. 

The Congratulation was considered as inferi- 
or in poetical merit to the " Panegyric:" and it 
is reported, that, when the King told Waller of 
the disparity, he answered, " Poets, Sir, suc- 
ceed better in fiction than in truth. ' ' 

The Congratulation is indeed not inferior to 
the " Panegyric," either by decay of genius, or 
for want of diligence ; but because Cromwell 
had done much, and Charles had done little. 
Cromwell wanted nothing to raise him to heroic 
excellence but virtue ; and virtue his Poet 
thought himself at liberty to supply. Charles 
had yet only the merit of struggling without suc- 
cess, and suffering without despair. A life of 
escapes and indigence could supply poetry with 
no splendid images. 

In the first parliament summoned by Charles 
the Second (March 8, 1661) Waller sat for 
Hastings, in Sussex, and served for different 
places in all the parliaments in that reign. In a 
time when fancy and gayety were the most power- 
ful recommendations to regard, it is not likely 
that Waller was forgotten. He passed his time 
in the company that was highest, both in rank 
and wit, from which even his obstinate so- 
briety did not exclude him. Though he drank 
water, he was enabled by his fertility of mind 
to 'heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assem- 
blies ; and Mr. Saville said, that " no man in 
England should keep him company without 
drinking but Ned Waller. " \ 

The praise given him by St. Evremond is a 
proof of his reputation ; for it was only by his 
reputation that he could be known, as a writer, 
to a man who, though he lived a great part of a 
long life upon an English pension, never conde- 
scended to understand the language of the nation 
that maintained him. 



In parliament, " he was," says Burnet, "the 
delight of the House, and though old said the 
liveliest things of any among them." This, how- 
ever, is said in his account of the year seventy 
five, when Waller was only seventy. His name 
as a speaker occurs often in Grey's Collections; 
but I have found no extracts that can be more 
quoted as exhibiting sallies of gayety than cogen- 
cy of argument. 

He was of such consideration, that his re- 
marks were circulated, and recorded. When 
the Duke of York's influence was high, both in 
Scotland and England, it drew, says Burnet, a 
lively reflection from Waller, the celebrated wit. 
He said, " the House of Commons had resolved 
that the Duke should not reign after the King's 
death ; but the King, in opposition to them, had 
resolved that he should reign even in his life." 
If there appear no extraordinaryJiyeZmess in this 
remark, yet its reception proves the speaker to 
have been a celebrated wit, to have had a name 
which men of wit were proud of mentioning. 

He did not suffer his reputation to die gradu- 
ally away, which may easily happen in a long 
life ; but renewed his claim to poetical distinc- 
tion from time to time, as occasions were offer- 
ed, either by public events or private incidents ; 
and contenting himself with the influence of bis 
muse, or loving quiet better than influence, he 
never accepted any office of magistracy. 

He was not, however, without some atten- 
| tion to his fortune ; for he asked from the King 
j (in 1665) the provostship of Eton College, and 
| obtained it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal 
j to the grant, alleging that it could be held only 
by a clergyman. It is known that Sir Henry 
j Wotton qualified himself for it by deacon's orders 
To this opposition, the " Biographia" imputes 
j the violence and acrimony with which Waller 
j joined Buckingham's faction in the prosecution 
of Clarendon. The motive was illiberal and dis- 
honest, and showed that more than sixty years 
j had not been able to teach him morality. His 
accusation is such as conscience can hardly be 
supposed to dictate without the help of malice. 
" We were to be governed by Janizaries instead 
of parliaments, and are in danger from a worse 
\ plot than that of the fifth of November ; then, if 
j the Lords and Commons had been destroyed 
■ there had been a succession ; but here both had 
been destroyed, for ever." This is the language of 
a man who is glad of an opportunity to rail, and 
ready to sacrifice truth to interest at one time, 
and to anger at another. 

A year after the Chancellor's banishment, 
another vacancy gave him encouragement for 
another petition, which the King referred to the 
council, who, after hearing the question argued 
by lawyers for three days, determined that the 
office could be held only by a clergyman, accord- 
ing to the act of Uniformity, since theprovosk 
had always received institution as for a parson- 
age from the bishops of Lincoln. The King thei? 



WALLER. 



75 



said, he could not break the law which he had 
made : and Dr. Zachary Cradok, famous for a 
single sermon, at most for two sermons, was 
chosen by the fellows. 

That he asked any thing more is not known ; 
it is certain that he obtained nothing, though he 
continued obsequious to the court through the 
rest of Charles's reign. 

At the accession of King James (in 1685) he 
was chosen for parliament, being then fourscore, 
at Saltash, in Cornwall ; and wrote a " Presage 
of the Downfall of the Turkish Empire," 
which he presented to the King on his birth-day. 
It is remarked, by his commentator Fenton, 
that in reading Tasso he had early imbibed a 
veneration for the heroes of the holy war, and a 
zealous enmity to the Turks, which never left 
him. James, however, having soon after begun 
what he thought a holy war at home, made 
haste to put all molestation of the Turks out of 
his power. 

James treated him with kindness and famil- 
iarity, of which instances are given by the 
writer of his life. One day taking him into 
the closet, the King asked him how he liked 
one of the pictures: " My eyes," said Waller, 
" are dim, and I do not know it." The King 
said it was the Princess of Orange. " She is," 
said Waller, " like the greatest woman in the 
world." The King asked who was that; and 
was answered, Queen Elizabeth. " I wonder," 
said the King, " you should think so ; but I 
must confess she had a wise council. " "And, 
Sir," said Waller, " did you ever know a fool 
choose a wise one?" Such is the story, which 
I once heard of some other man. Pointed 
axioms, and acute replies, fly loose about the 
world, and are assigned successively to those 
whom it may be the fashion to celebrate. 

When the king knew that he was about to 
marry his daughter to Dr. Birch, a clergyman, 
he ordered a French gentleman to tell him, that 
" the King wondered he could think of marry- 
ing his daughter to a falling church." " The 
King," said Waller, "does me great honour, in 
taking notice of my domestic affairs ; but I have 
lived long enough to observe, that this falling 
church has got a trick of rising again." 

He took notice to his friends of the King's 
conduct ; and said, that " he would be left like 
a whale upon the strand." Whether he was 
privy to any of the transactions which ended in 
the Revolution, is not known. His heir joined 
the Prince of Orange. 

Having now attained an age beyond which 
the laws of nature seldom suffer life to be ex- 
tended, otherwise than by a future state, he 
seems to have turned his mind upon preparation 
for the decisive hour, and therefore consecrated 
his poetry to devotion. It is pleasing to discover 
that his piety was without weakness ; that his 
Intellectual powers continued vigorous : and that 



the lines which he composed, when " he, for 
age, could neitlier read nor write,'" are not inferior 
to the effusions of his youth. 

Towards the decline of life, he bought a small 
house with a little land, at ColeslyHl ; and said, 
" he should be glad to die, like the stag, where 
he was roused." This, however, did not hap- 
pen. When he was at Beaconsfield, he found 
his legs grow timid : he went to Windsor, where 
Sir Charles Scarborough then attended the King, 
and requested him, as both a friend and a phy- 
sician, to tell him, what that swelling meant. 
" Sir," answered Scarborough, " your blood 
will run no longer." Waller repeated some 
lines of Virgil, and went home to die. 

As the disease increased upon him, he com- 
posed himself for his departure ; and, calling 
upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy sacrament, 
he desired his children to take it with him, and 
made an earnest declaration of his faith in Chris- 
tianity. It now appeared what part of his 
conversation with the great could be remem- 
bered with delight. He related, that being 
present when the Duke of Buckingham talked 
profanely before King Charles, he said to him, 
" My Lord, I am a great deal older than your 
Grace, and have, I believe, heard more argu- 
ments for atheism than ever your Grace did; 
but I have lived long enough to see there is 
nothing in them; and so I hope your Grace 
will." 

He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at 
Beaconsfield, with a monument erected by his 
son's executors, for whieh Rymer wrote the 
inscription, and which I hope is now rescued 
from dilapidation. 

He left several children by his second wife : 
of whom, his daughter was married to Dr. 
Birch. Benjamin, the eldest son, was disin- 
herited, and sent to New Jersey as wanting 
common understanding. Edmund, the second 
son, inherited the estate, and represented Ag- 
mondesham in parliament, but at last turned 
quaker. William, the third son, was a mer- 
chant in London. Stephen, the fourth, was 
an eminent doctor of laws,, and one of the com- 
missioners for the Union. There is said to have 
been a fifth, of whom no account has descended. 

The character of Waller, both moral and In- 
tellectual, has been drawn by Clarendon, to 
whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, 
which certainly none to whom he was not known 
can presume to emulate. It is therefore inserted 
here, with such remarks as others have sup- 
plied ; after which, nothing remains but a 
critical examination of his poetry. 

" Edmund Waller," says Clarendon, " was 
born to a very fair estate, by the parsimony or 
frugality of a wise father and mother : and he 
thought it so commendable an advantage, that 
he resolved to improve it "with his utmost care, 
upon whieh in his nature he was too much 



70 



WALLER. 



intent : and, in order to that, he was so much 
reserved and retired, that he was scarcely ever 
heard of till hy his address and dexterity he had 
gotten a very rich wife in the city, against all 
the recommendation, and countenance, and au- 
thority of the court, which was thoroughly 
engaged on the hehalf of Mr. Crofts, and which 
used to he successful in that age, against any 
opposition. He had the good fortune to have 
an alliance and friendship with Dr. Morley, 
who had assisted and instructed him in the 
reading many good books, to which his natural 
parts and promptitude inclined him, especially 
the poets ; and at the age when other men used 
to give over writing verses (for he was near 
thirty years when he first engaged himself in 
that exercise, at least that he was known to do 
so), he surprised the town with two or three 
pieces of that kind as if a tenth Muse had been 
newly born to cherish drooping poetry. The 
Doctor at that time brought him into that com- 
pany which was most celebrated for good con- 
versation ; where he Was received and esteemed 
with great applause and respect. He was a 
very pleasant discourser in earnest and in jest, 
and therefore very grateful to all kind of com- 
pany, where he was not the less esteemed for 
being very rich. 

" He had been even nursed in parliaments, 
where he sat when he was very young ; and so, 
when they were resumed again (after a long in- 
termission) he appeared in those assemblies with 
great advantage ; having a graceful way of 
speaking, and by thinking much on several ar- 
guments (which his temper and complexion, that 
had much of melancholic, inclined him to) he 
seemed often to speak upon the sudden, when 
the occasion had only administered the opportu- 
nity of saying what he had thoroughly consi- 
dered, which gave a great lustre to all he said ; 
which yet was rather of delight than weight. 
There needs no more be- said to extol the excel- 
lence and power of his wit, and pleasantness of 
his conversation, than that it was of magnitude 
enough to cover a world of very great faults ; 
that is, so to cover them, that they were not 
taken notice of to his reproach, viz. a narrow- 
ness in his nature to the lowest degree ; an ab- 
jectness and want of courage to support him in 
any virtuous undertaking ; an insinuation and 
servile flattery to the height the vainest and most 
imperious nature could be contented with ; 
that it preserved and won his life from those 
who were most resolved to take it, and in an oc- 
casion in which he ought to have been ambitious 
to have lost it ; and then preserved him again 
from the reproach and the contempt that was 
due to him for so preserving it, and for vindi- 
cating it at such a price that it had power to re- 
concile him to those whom he had most offend- 
ed and provoked ; and continued to his age with 
that rare felicity, that his company was accept- 



able where his spirit was odious ; and he was at 
least pitied where he was most detested." 

Such is the account of Clarendon ; on which 
it may not be improper to make some remarks. 

" He was very little known till he had ob- 
tained a rich wife in the city." 

He obtained a rich wife about the age of three- 
and-twenty ; an age, before which few men are 
conspicuous much to their advantage. He was 
known, however, in parliament and at court : 
and, if he spent part of his time in privacy, it is 
not unreasonable to suppose that he endeavoured 
the improvement of his mind as well as of his for- 
tune. That Clarendon might misjudge the mo- 
tive of his retirement is the more probable, be- 
cause he has evidently mistaken the commence- 
ment of his poetry, which he supposes him not 
to have attempted before thirty. As his first 
pieees were perhaps not printed, the succession 
of his compositions was not known ; and Cla- 
rendon, who cannot be imagined to have been 
very studious of poetry, did not rsctify his first 
opinion by consulting Waller's book. 

Clarendon observes, that he was introduced to 
the wits of the age by Dr. Morley; but the 
writer of his Life relates that he was already 
among them, when, hearing a noise in the street, 
and inquiring the cause, they found a son of Ben 
Jonson under an arrest. This was Morley, 
whom Waller set free at the expense of one hun- 
dred pounds, took him into the country as di- 
rector of his studies, and then procured him ad- 
mission into the company of the friends of li- 
terature. Of this fact, Clarendon had a nearer 
knowledge than the biographer, and is therefore 
more to be credited. 

The account of Waller's parliamentary elo- 
quence is seconded by Burnet, who, though he 
calls him " the delight of the House," adds, 
that " he was only concerned to say that which 
should make him be applauded, he never laid 
the business of the House to heart, being a vain 
and empty, though a witty man." 

Of his insinuation and flattery it is not un- 
reasonable to believe that the truth is told. 
Ascham, in his elegant description of those 
whom in modern language we term wits, says, 
that they are open flatterers, and privy mockers. 
Waller showed a little of both, when, upon sight 
of the Dutchess of Newcastle's verses on the 
death of a Stag, he declared that he would give 
all his own composition? to have written them, 
and being charged with the exorbitance of his 
adulation, answered, that " nothing was too 
much to be given, that a lady might be saved 
from the disgrace of s»*ch a vile performance." 
This, however, was no very mischievous or 
very unusual deviation from truth : had his hy- 
pocrisy been confined to such transactions, he 
might have been forgiven, though not praised ; 
for who forbears to flatter an author or a lady ? 

Of the laxity of his political principles, and 



WALLER. 



77 



the weakness of his resolution, he experienced 
the natural effect, by losing the esteem of every 
party. From Cromwell he had only his recal ; 
.aid from Charles the Second, who delighted in 
/lis company, he obtained only the pardon of his 
relation Hampden, and the safety of Hampden's 
con. 

As far as conjecture can be made from the 
whole of his writing, and his conduct, he was 
habitually and deliberately a friend to monarchy. 
His deviation towards democracy proceeded 
from his connexion with Hampden, for whose 
sake he prosecuted Crawley with great bitter- 
ness ; and the invective which he pronounced on 
that occasion was so popular, that twenty thou- 
sand copies are said by his biographer to have 
been sold in one day. 

It is confessed that his faults still left him 
many friends, at least many companions. His 
convivial power of pleasing is universally ac- 
knowledged ; but those who conversed with 
him intimately, found him not only passionate, 
especially in his old age, but resentful ; so that 
the interposition of friends was sometimes ne- 
cessary. 

His wit and his poetry naturally connected 
him with the polite writers of his time : he was 
joined with Lord Buckhurst in the translation 
of Corneille's " Pompey ;" and is said to have 
added his help to that of Cowley, in the original 
draft of the " Rehearsal." 

The care of his fortune, which Clarendon im- 
putes to him in a degree little less than criminal, 
was either not constant or not successful ; for, 
having inherited a patrimony of three thousand 
five hundred pounds a year, in the time of 
Jame3 the First, and augmented it at least by 
one wealthy marriage, he left, about the time of 
the Revolution, an income of not more than 
twelve or thirteen hundred ; which, when the 



different value of money is reckoned,, will be 



found perhaps not more than a fourth part of 
what he once possessed. 

Of this diminution, part was the consequence 
of the gifts which he was forced to scatter, and 
the fine which he was condemned to pay at the j 
detection of his plot ; and if his estate, as is re- ' 
lated in his Life, was sequestered, he had pro- 
bably contracted debts when he lived in exile ; 
for we are told, that at Paris he lived in splen- 
dour, and was the only Englishman, except the 
Lord St. Albans, that kept a table. I 

His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a 
thousand a year ; of the waste of the rest there 
is no account, except that he is confessed by his 
biographer to have been a bad economist. He 
seems to have deviated from the common prac- 
tice ; to have been a hoarder in his first years, ' 
and a squanderer in his last. , 

Of his course of studies, or choice of books, 
nothing is known more than that he professed 
himself unable to read Chapman's translation 
of Homer without rapture. His opinion con- 



cerning the duty of a poet is contained in his 
declaration, " that he would blot from his 
works any line that did not contain some mo- 
tive to virtue." 

The characters, by which Waller intended to 
distinguish his writing, are sprightliness and 
dignity; in his smallest pieces, he endeavours 
to be gay ; in the larger to be great. Of his 
airy and light productions, the chief source is 
gallantry, that attentive reverence of female ex- 
cellence which has descended to us from the 
Gothic ages. As his poems are commonly oc- 
casional, and his addresses personal, he was not 
so liberally supplied with grand as with soft 
images ; for beauty is more easily found than 
magnanimity. 

The delicacy which he cultivated, restrains 
him to a certain nicety and caution, even when 
he writes upon the slightest matter. He has, 
therefore, in his whole volume, nothing bur- 
lesque, and seldom any thing ludicrous or fa- 
miliar. He seems always to do his best ; though 
his subjects are often unworthy of his care. 

It is not easy to think without some contempt 
on an author, who is growing illustrious in his 
own opinion by verses, at one time, " To a 
Lady who can do any thing but sleep when she 
pleases ;" at another, " To a Lady who can 
sleep when she pleases;" now, " To a Lady, on 
her passing through a crowd of people;" then, 
" On a braid of divers colours woven by four 
Ladies;" " On a tree cut in paper;" or, 
" To a Lady from whom he received the copy 
of verses on the paper-tree, which for many 
years had been missing." 

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. 
We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Spar- 
row of Catullus ; and a writer naturally pleases 
himself with a performance which owes no- 
thing to the subject. But compositions merely 
pretty have the fate of other pretty things, and 
are quitted in time for something useful ; they 
are flowers fragrant and fair, but of short dura- 
tion ; or they are blossoms to be valued only as 
they foretel fruits. 

Among Waller's little poems are some, which 
their excellency ought to secure from oblivion ; 
as, " To Amoret," comparing the different 
modes of regard with which he looks on her 
and Sacharissa; and the verses "On Love," 
that begin, Anger in hasty words or blows. 

In others he is not equally successful ; some- 
times his thoughts are deficient, and sometimes 
his expression. 

The numbers are not always musical ; as, 

Pair Venus, in thy soft arms 

The god of rage confine; 
For thy whispers are the charms 

Which only can divert his fierce design. 
What though he frown, and. to tumult do incline ; 

Thou the flame 

Kindled in his breast canst tame 
With that snow which unmelted. lies on thine. 
L 



78 



WALLER. 



He seldom, indeed, fetches an amorous senti- 
ment from the depths of science ; his thoughts 
are for the most part easily understood, and his 
images such as the superficies of nature readily 
supplies ; he has a just claim to popularity, he- 
cause he writes to common degrees of know- 
ledge ; and is free at least from philosophical pe- 
dantry, unless perhaps the end of a Song to the 
Sun may he excepted, in which he is too much 
a Copernican. To which may he added the 
simile of the palm in the verses " On her passing 
through a crowd ;" and a line in a more serious 
poem on the Restoration, ahout vipers and trea- 
cle, which can only he understood by those who 
happen to know the composition of the The- 
riaca. 

His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical, and 
his images unnatural : 

The plants admire, 

No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre : 
If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd ; 
They round about her into arbours crowd: 
Or if she walks, in even rants they stand, 
Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band. 

In another place : 

While, in the park I sing, the listening deer 
Attend my passion, and forget to fear: 
When to the beeches I report my flame, 
They bow their heads, as if they felt the same. 
To gods appealing, when I reach tbeir bowers, 
With loud complaints they answer me in showers. 
To thee a wild and cruel soul is given, 
More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven ! 

" On the Head of a Stag : " 

O fertile head ! which every year 
Could such a crop of wonder bear ! 
The teeming earth did never bring 
So soon so hard, so huge a thing : 
Which might it never have been cast 
Each year's growth added to the last, 
These lofty branches had supplied 
The earth's bold son's prodigious pride ; 
Heaven with these engines had been scal'd . 
When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd. 

Sometimes, having succeeded in the first part, 
he makes a feeble conclusion. In the Song of 
Sacharissa's and Amoret's friendship, the two 
last stanzas ought to have been omitted. 

His images of gallantry are not always in the 

highest degree delicate : 

Then shall my love this doubt displace. 
And gain such trust that I may come 

And banquet sometimes on thy face, 
But make my constant meals at home. 

Some applications may be thought too remote 
and unconsequential ; as in the verses on the 
Lady dancing: 



The sun in figures such as these 
Joys with the moon to play : 

To the sweet strains they advance, 
Which do result from their own spheres ; 

As this nymph's dance 
Moves with the numbers which she hears. 

Sometimes a thought, which might perhaps 
fill a distich, is expanded and attenuated till it 
grows weak and almost evanescent : 

Chloris ! since first our calm of peace 
Was frighted hence, this good we find, 

Your favours with your fears iucrease, 
And growing mischiefs make you kind. 

So the fair tree, which still preserves 

Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows, 

In storms from that uprightness swerves ; 
And the glad earth about her strows 
With treasure from her yielding boughs. 

His images are not always distinct ; as, in the 
following passage, he confounds Love as a per- 
son with Love as a passion : 

Some other nymphs, with colours faint, 
And pencil slow, may Cupid paint, 
And a weak heart in time destroy ; 
She has a stamp, and prints the boy: 
Can with a single look, inflame 
The coldest breast, the rudest tame. 

His sallies of casual flattery are sometimes 
elegant and happy, as that in return for the Silver 
Pen; and sometimes empty and trifling, as that 
upon the Card torn by the Queen. There are a few 
lines written in the Dutchess's Tasso, which he 
is said by Fenton to have kept a summer under 
correction. It happened to Waller, as to others, 
that his success was not always in proportion to 
his labour. 

Of these petty compositions, neither the beau- 
ties nor the faults deserve much attention. The 
amorous verses have this to recommend them, 
that they are less hyperbolical than those of 
some other poets. Waller is not always at the 
last gasp ; he does not die of a frown, nor live 
upon a smile. There is however, too much 
love, and too many trifles. Little things are 
made too important ; and the empire of Beauty 
is represented as exerting its influence farther 
than can be allowed by the multiplicity of hu- 
man passions, and the variety of human wants. 
Such books therefore, may be considered as 
showing the world under a false appearance, 
and, so far as they obtain credit from the young 
and unexperienced, as misleading expectation, 
and misguiding practice. 

Of his nobler and more weighty performances 
the greater part is panegyrical : for of praise he 
was very lavish, as is observed by his imitator 
Lord Lansdowne : 

No satyr stalks within the haljow'd ground, \ 

But queens and heroines, tings and gods abound ; >• 
Glory and arms and love are all the sound. ) 



WALLER. 



79 



In the first poem, on the danger of the Prince 
on the coast of Spain, there is a puerile and ri- 
diculous mention of Arion at the heginning ; and 
the last paragraph, on the Cable, is in part ridi- 
culously mean, and in part ridiculously tumid. 
The poem, however, is such as may be justly 
praised, without much allowance for the state of 
our poetry and language at that time. 

The two next poems are upon the King's be- 
haviour at tlie death of Buckingham, and upon his 
Navy. 

He has, in the first, used the pagan deities 
with great propriety : 

'Tvvas want of such a precedent as this 

Made the old heathens frame their gods amiss. 

In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very 
noble which suppose the king's power secure 
against a second deluge ; so noble, that it were al- 
most criminal to remark the mistake of centre for 
surface, or to say that the empire of the sea would 
be worth little if it were not that the waters ter- 
minate in land. 

The poem upon Sallee has forcible sentiments ; 
but the conclusion is feeble. That on the Repairs 
of St. Paul's has something vulgar and obvious ; 
such as the mention of Amphion : and some- 
thing violent and harsh : as, 

So all our minds with his conspire to grace 
The gentiles' great apostle, and deface 
Those state-obscuring eheds, that like a chain 
Seem'd to confine and fetter him again : 
Which the glad saint shakes off at his command, 
As once the viper from his sacred hand. 
So joys the aged oak, when we divide 
The creeping ivy from his injur'd side. 

Of the two last couplets, the first is extrava- 
gant, and the second mean. 

His praise of the Queen is too much exagge- 
rated ; and the thought, that she " saves lovers 
by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are cured by 
loping the limb," presents nothing to the mind 
but disgust and horror. 

Of " The Battle of the Summer Islands," it 
seems not easy to say whether it is intended to 
raise terror or merriment. The beginning is 
too splendid for jest, and the conclusion too light 
for seriousness. The versification is studied, 
the scenes are diligently displayed, and the 
images artfully amplified ; but, as it ends neither 
in joy nor sorrow, it will scarcely be read a 
second time. 

The " Panegyric" upon Cromwell has obtain- 
ed from the public avery liberal dividend of praise, 
which however cannot be said to have been un- 
justly lavished ; for such a series of verses had 
rarely appeared before in the English language. 
Of the lines, some are grand, some are graceful, 
and all are musical. There is now and then a 
feeble verse, or a trifling thought ; but its great 
fault is the choice of its hero. 

The poem of " The War with Spain" begins 



with lines more vigorous and striking than 
Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeed- 
ing parts are variegated with better passages and 
worse. There is something too far-fetched in 
the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the 
English on, by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, 
to lambs awakening the lion by bleating. The fate of 
the Marquis and his lady, who were burnt in 
their ship, would have moved more, had the 
Poet not made him die like the phoenix, because 
he had spices about him, nor expressed their af- 
fection and their end by a conceit at once false 
and vulgar : 

Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd, 
And now together are to ashes turn'd. 

The verses to Charles, on his return, were 
doubtless intended to counterbalance the " Pa- 
negyric" on Cromwell. If it has been thought 
inferior to that with which it is naturally com- 
pared, the cause of its deficience has been already 
remarked. 

The remaining pieces it is not necessary to ex- 
amine singly. They must be supposed to have 
faults and beauties of the same kind with the 
rest. The sacred poems, however, deserve par- 
ticular regard ; they were the work of Waller's 
declining life, of those hours in which he looked 
upon the fame and the folly of the time past 
with the sentiments which his great predecessor 
Petrarch bequeathed to posterity, upon his re- 
view of that love and poetry which have given 
him immortality. 

That natural jealousy which makes every man 
unwilling to allow much excellence in another, 
always produces a disposition to believe that 
the mind grows old with the body ; and that 
he, whom we are now forced to confess supe- 
rior, is hastening daily to a level with ourselves. 
By delighting to think this of the living, we 
learn to think it of the dead ; and Fenton, with 
all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to 
mark the exact time when his genius passed 
the zenith, which he places at his fifty-fifth 
year. This is to allot the mind but a small por- 
tion. Intellectual decay is doubtless not un- 
common ; but it seems not to be universal. 
Newton was in his eighty-fifth year improving 
his chronology, a few days before his death ; 
and Waller appears not, in my opinion, to have 
lost at eighty-two any part of his poetical 
power. 

His sacred poems do not please like some of 
his other works ; but before the fatal fifty-five, 
had he written on the same subjects, his success 
would hardly have been better. 

It has been the frequent lamentation of good 
men, that verse has been too little applied to 
the purposes of worship, and many attempts 
have been made to animate devotion by pious 
poetry. That they have very seldom attained 
their end is sufficiently known, and it may no* 



80 



WALLER. 



be improper to inquire why they have mis- 
carried. 

Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in 
opposition to many authorities, that poetical 
devotion cannot often please. The doctrines of 
religion may, indeed, be defended in a didactic 
poem ; and he, who has the happy power of 
arguing in verse, will not lose it because his 
subject is sacred. A poet may describe the 
beauty and the grandeur of Nature, the flowers 
of the Spring, and the harvests of Autumn, 
the vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions 
of the sky, and praise the Maker for his works, 
in lines which no reader shall lay aside. The 
subject of the disputation is not piety, but the 
motives to piety ; that of the description is not 
God, but the works of God. 

Contemplative piety, or the intercourse be- 
tween God and the human soul, cannot be 
poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy 
of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Re- 
deemer, is already in a higher state than poetry 
can confer. 

The essence of poetry is invention ; such in- 
vention as, by producing something unexpected, 
surprises and delights. The topics of devotion 
are few, and being few are universally known ; 
but few as they are, they can be made no more ; 
they can receive no grace from novelty of senti- 
ment, and very little from novelty of expres- 
sion. 

Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more 
grateful to the mind than things themselves 
afford. This effect proceeds from the display of 
those parts of nature which attract, and the 
concealment of those which repel, the imagina- 
tion : but religion must be shown as it is ; sup- 
pression and addition equally corrupt it ; and 
such as it is, it is known already. 

From poetry the reader justly expects, and 
from good poetry always obtains, the enlarge- 
ment of his comprehension and elevation of his 
fancy ; but this is rarely to be hoped by Chris- 
tians from metrical devotion. Whatever is great j 
desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the 
name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence 
cannot be exalted ; Infinity cannot be amplified ; 
Perfection cannot be improved. 

The employments of pious meditation are 
faith, thanksgiving, repentance, and supplica- 
tion. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be in- 
vested by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiv- 
ing, the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet 
addressed to a Being without passions, is con- 
fined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather 
than expressed. Repentance, trembling in the 
presence of the Judge, is not at leisure for ca- 
dences and epithets. Supplication of man to 
man may diffuse itself through many topics of 
persuasion ; but supplication to God can only 
cry for mercy. 

Of sentiments purely religious, it will be 



found that the most simple expression is the 
most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its 
power, because it is applied to the decoration of 
something more excellent than itself. All that 
pious verse can do is to help the memory, and 
delight the ear, and for these purposes it may 
be very useful ; but it supplies nothing to the 
mind. The ideas of Christian theology are too 
simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and 
too majestic for ornament : to recommend them 
by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave 
mirror the sidereal hemisphere. 

As much of Waller's reputation was owing 
to the softness and smoothness of his numbers, 
it is proper to consider those minute particulars 
to which a versifier must attend. 

He certainly very much excelled in smooth- 
ness most of the writers who were living when 
his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth 
had attained an art of modulation, which was 
afterwards neglected or forgotten. Fairfax was 
acknowledged by him as his model; and he 
might have studied with advantage the poem of 
Da vies,* which, though merely philosophical, 
yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified. 

But he was rather smooth than strong : of the 
full resounding line, which Pope attributes to 
Dryden, he has given very few examples. The 
critical decision has given the praise of strength 
to Denham, and of sweetness to Waller. 

His excellence of versification has some abate- 
ments. He uses the expletive do very frequent- 
ly ; and, though he lived to see it almost uni- 
versally ejected, was not more careful to avoid 
it in his last compositions than in his first. 
Praise had given him confidence ; and finding 
the world satisfied, he satisfied himself. 

His rhymes are sometimes weak words : so is 
found to make the rhyme twice in ten lines 
and occurs often as a rhyme through his book. 

His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have 
been censured by Mrs. Phillips, who was his 
rival in the translation of Corneille's " Pom- 
pey;" and more faults might be found, werf 
not the inquiry below attention. 

He sometimes uses the obsolete termination 
of verbs, as waxeth, ajfecteth ; and sometimes re 
tains the final syllable of the preterite, a. 
amazed, supposed, of which I know not whether 
it is not to the detriment of our language that 
we have totally rejected them. 

Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not 
wholly forbear them ; of an Alexandrine he 
has given no example. 

The general character of his poetry is ele- 
gance and gayety. He is never pathetic, and 
very rarely sublime. He seems neither to have 

* Sir John D-avies, entitled, " Nosce teipsum. 
This oracle expounded in two Elegies: 1. Of Hu- 
mane Knowledge; II. Of the Soule of Man and th» 

Imniortalitie thereof, 1599."— R. 



WALLER. 



81 



had a mind much elevated by nature, nor am- 
plified by learning. His thoughts are such as a 
liberal conversation and large acquaintance with 
life would easily supply. They had however 
then, perhaps, that grace of novelty, which they 
are now often supposed to want by those who, 
having already found them in later books, do 
not know or inquire who produced them first. 
This treatment is unjust. Let not the original 
author lose by his imitators. 

Praise, however, should be due before it is 
given. The author of Waller's Life ascribes to 
him the first practice of what Erythraeus and 
some late critics call alliteration, of using in the 
same verse many words beginning with the 
same letter. But this knack, whatever be its 
value, was so frequent among early writers, 
that Gascoigne, a writer of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, warns the young poet against affecting it : 
Shakspeare, in the " Midsummer Night's 
Dream," is supposed to ridicule it; and in 
another play the sonnet of Holofernes fully dis- 
plays it. 

He borrows too many of his sentiments and 
illustrations from the old mythology, for which 
it is vain to plead the example of ancient poets ; 
the deities which they introduced so frequently, 
were considered as realities, so far as to be re- 
ceived by the imagination, whatever sober 
reason might even then determine. But of 
these images time has tarnished the splendour. 
A fiction, not only detected but despised, can 
never afford a solid basis to any position, though 
sometimes it may furnish a transient allusion, 
or slight illustration. No modern monarch can 
be much exalted by hearing that, as Hercules 
had his club, he has his navy. 

But of the praise of Waller, though much 
may be taken away, much will remain ; for it 
cannot be denied, that he added something to 
our elegance of diction, and something to our 
propriety of thought ; and to him may be ap- 
plied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and 
justice, of himself and Guarini, when, having 
perused the " Pastor Fido," he cried out, " If 
he had not read « Aminta,' he had not excelled 
it." 

As Waller professed himself to have learned 
the art of versification from Fairfax, it has been 
thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his 
work, which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, 
will perhaps not be soon reprinted. By know- 
ing the state in which Waller found our poetry, 
the reader may judge how much he improved 
it. 



Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse bore 
Through forests thicke among the shadie treene, 
Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore, 
Halfe in a swoune she was for feare I weene ; 



But her flit courser spared nere the more, 

To beare her through the desart woods unseene 

Of her strong foes, that chased her through the 
plaine, 

And still pursued, but still pursued in vaine. 

II 

Like as the wearie hounds at last retire, 
Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace, 
When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire, 
No art nor pains can rowse out of his place : 
The Christian knights so full of shame and ire 
Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace! 
Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as winde 
Nor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde. 

III. 

Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she 

driued, 
Withouten comfort, companie, or guide, 
Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued, 
She heard and saw her greefes, but naught beside, 
But when the sunne his burning chariot diued 
In Thetis waue, and wearie teame vntide, 
On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid, 
At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid- 

IV. 

Her teares, her drinke ; her food, her sorrowings ; 
This was her diet that vnhappy night : 
But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings) 
To ease the greefes of discontented wight, 
Spred foorth his tender, soft, and nimble wings^ 
In his dull armes foulding the -virgin bright: 
And loue, his mother, and the graces kept 
Strong watch , and warde, while this faire Ladie 
blept. 



The birds awakte her with their morning song, 
Their warbling musicke pearst her tender care, 
The murmuring brookes and whistling wiudes 

among 
The ratling boughes, and leaues, their parts did 

beare; 
Her eies vnclosed beheld the groues along, 
Of swaines and shepherd groomes that dwellings 



And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters 

sent, 
Prouokt again the virgin to lament. 

VI. 

Her plaints were interrupted with a sound, 
That seem'd from thickest bushes to proceed, 
Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round, 
And to his voice had tun'd his oaten reed ; 
Thither she went, an old man there she found 
(At whose right hand his little flock did feed) 
Sat making baskets, his three sounes among 
That learn'd their father's art, and leain'd his song. 

VII. 

Beholding one in shining armes appeare 
The seelie man and his were sore dismaid ; 
But sweet Erminia comforted their feare, 
Her ventall vp, her visage open laid, 
You happy folke, of heau'n beloued deare, 
Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid, 



82 



WALLER- 



These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring 
To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes you sing* 

VIII. 

But father, since this land, these townes and towers, 
DiStroied are with sword, with fire and spoile, 
How may it be, unhurt that you and yours 
In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile 1 
My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours 
Is euer safe from storm of warlike broile ; 
This wilderness doth vs in saftie keepe, 
No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our 
sleepe. 

IX. 

Haply iust heau'ns defence and shield of right, 

Doth loue the innocence of simple swains. 

The thunderbolts on highest mountains light, 

And seld or neuer strike the lower plain es : 

So kings haye cause to feare Bellonaes might, 

Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gams, 

Nor ever greedie soldier was entised 

By pouertie, neglected and despised. 



Pouertie, chefs of the heau'nly brood, 
Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne J 
No wish for honour, thirst of others good, 
Can moue my heart, contented with my owne : 
We quench our thirst with water of this flood, 
Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne : 

These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates 
Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates. 

XI. 

We little wish, we need but little wealth, 
From cold and hunger ts to cloath and feed ; 
These are my sonnes, their care preserues from 

stealth 
Their fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need : 
Amid these groues I walke oft for my health, 
And to the fishes, birds, and beastes giue heed, 
How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake, 
And their contentment for ensample take. 

XII. 

Time was (for each one hath his doating time, 
These siluer locks were golden tresses than) 
That countrie life I hated as a crime, 
And from the forrests sweet contentment ran, 
To Memphis' stately pallace would I clime, 
And there became the mightie Caliphes man, 
And though I but a simple gardner weare, 
Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare. 

XIII. 

Entised on with hope of future gaine, 

1 suffered long what did my soule displease ; 



But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaino 
I felt my native strength at last decrease ; 
I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine, 
And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace ; 
I bod the court farewell, and with content 
My later age here have I quiet spent. 

XIV. 

While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still 
His wise discourses heard, with great attention, 
His speeches graue those idle fancies kill, 
Which in her .troubled soule bred such dissention ; 
After much thought reformed was her will, 
Within those woods to dwell, was her intention, 
Till fortune should occasion new afford, 
To turne her home to her desired Lord. 

XV. 

She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate ! 
That troubles some didst whilom feel and proue, 
Yet lieust now in this contented state, 
Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue, 
To entertaine me as a willing mate 
In shepherds life, which I admire and loue ; 
Within these pleasant groues perchance my hart 
Of her discomforts, may vnload some part. 

XVI. 

If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare, 
If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise, 
Such store thereof, such plentie haue 1 seen, 
As to a greedie minde might well suffice : 
With that downe trickled many a siluer teare, 
Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies ; 
Part of her sad misfortunes than she told, 
And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old. 

XVII. 

With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare 
Towards his cottage gently home to guide ; 
His aged wife there made her homely cheare, 
Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side. 
The Princesse dond a poore pastoraes geare, 
A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide ; 
But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse) 
Were such, as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse. 

XVIIL 

Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide 
The heau'nly beautie of her angels face, 
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide, 
Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace ; 
Her little flocks to pasture would she guide, 
And milk her goates, and in their folds them place, 
Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame 
Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame. 



POMFRET. 



Of Mr. John Pomfret nothing is known but 
from a slight and confused account prefixed to 
his poems by a nameless friend ; who relates, 
that he was son of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rec- 
tor of Luton, in Bedfordshire ; that he was 
bred at Cambridge;* entered into orders, and 
was rector of Maiden, in Bedfordshire; and 
might have risen in the church ; but that, when 
he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, 
for institution to a living of considerable value, 
to which he had been presented, he found a 
troublesome obstruction raised by a malicious 
interpretation of some passage in his " Choice ;" 
from which it was inferred, that he considered 
happiness as more likely to be found in the 
company of a mistress than of a wife. - 

This reproach was easily obliterated ; for it 
had happened to Pomfret as to almost all other 
men who plan schemes of life ; he had departed 
from his purpose, and was then married. 

The malice of his enemies had however a very 



fatal consequence : the delay constrained his at- 
tendance in London, where he caught the small- 
pox, and died in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of 
his age. 

He published his poems in 1699; and has 
been always the favourite of that class of read- 
ers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only 
their own amusement. 

His " Choice" exhibits a system of lifa adapt- 
ed to common notions and equal to common ex- 
pectations; such a state as affords plenty and 
tranquillity, without exclusion of intellectual 
pleasures. Perhaps no composition in our lan- 
guage has been oftener perused than Pomfret's 
" Choice." 

In his other poems there is an easy volubility, 
the pleasure of smooth metre is afforded to the 
ear, and the mind is not oppressed with ponder- 
ous or entangled with intricate sentiment. He 
pleases many ; and he who pleases many must 
have some species of merit. 



DORSET, 



Of the Earl of Dorset the character has been 
drawn so largeiy and so elegantly by Prior, to 
whom he was familiarly known, that nothing 
can be added by a casual hand ; and, as its au- 
thor is so generally read, it would be useless of- 
ficiousness to transcribe it. 

Charles Sackville was born January 24, 
1637. Having been educated under a private 
tutor, he travelled into Italy, and returned a 
little before the Restoration. He was chosen 
into the first parliament that was called, for 
East Grinstead, in Sussex, and soon became a 
."avourite of Charles the Second; but undertook 
no public employment, being too eager of the 
riotous and licentious pleasures which young 

* He was of Queen's College there, and, by the 
University register, appears to have taken his ba- 
chelor's degree in 1684, u and his master's, 1098. H. 
—His father was of Trinity.— C. 



men of high rank, who aspired to be thought 
wits, at that time imagined themselves entitled 
to indulge. 

One of these frolics has, by the industry of 
Wood, come down to posterity. Sackville, who 
was then Lord Buckhurst, with Sir Charles 
Sedley and Sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the 
Cock, in Bow-street, by Covent-garden, and, 
going into the balcony, exposed themselves to 
the populace in very indecent postures. At last, 
as they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, 
and harangued the populace in such profane 
language, that the public indignation was a- 
wakened ; the crowd attempted to force the 
door, and, being repulsed, drove in the per- 
formers with stones, and broke the windows of 
the house. 

For this misdemeanour they were indicted, 
and Sedley was fined five hundred pounds : 
what was the sentence of the others is not 
known. Sedley employed Killigrew and ano- 



84 



STEPNEY. 



ther to procure a remission from the King ; but 
(mark the friendship of the dissolute !) they beg- 
ged the fine for themselves, and exacted it to the 
Zast groat. 

In 1665, Lord Buckhurst attended the Duke 
of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war ; and 
was in the battle of June 3, when eighteen great 
Dutch ships were t&ken, fourteen others were 
destroyed, and Opdam, the admiral, who en- 
gaged the Duke, was blown up beside him, with 
all his crew. 

On the day before the battle, he is said to have 
composed the celebrated song, " To all you la- 
dies now at land," with equal tranquillity of 
mind and promptitude of wit. Seldom any 
splendid story is wholly true. I have heard, 
from the late Earl of Orrery, who was likely 
to have good hereditary intelligence, that Lord 
Buckhurst had been a week employed upon it, 
and only retouched or finished it on the memor- 
able evening. But even this, whatever it may 
subtract from his facility, leaves him his cour- 
age. 

He was soon after made a gentleman of the 
bed-chamber, and sent on short embassies to 
France. 

In 1674, the estate of his uncle James Cran- 
field, Earl of Middlesex, came to him by its 
owner's death, and the title was conferred on 
him the year after. In 1 677, he became, by the 
death of his father, Earl of Dorset, and inherit- 
ed the estate of his family. 

In 1684, having buried his first wife of the fa- 
mily of Bagot, who left him no child, he mar- 
ried a daughter of the Earl of Northampton, 
celebrated both for beauty and understanding. 

He received some favourable notice from King 
James ; but soon found it necessary to oppose 
the violence of his innovations, and, with some 
other lords, appeared in Westminster Hall to 
countenance the bishops at their trial. 

As enormities grew every day less support- 
able, he found it necessary to concur in the He- 
volution. He was one of those lords who sat 



every day in council to preserve the public peace, 
after the King's departure ; and, what is not 
the most illustrious action of his life, was em- 
ployed to conduct the Princess Anne to Notting- 
ham with a guard, such as might alarm the po- 
pulace as they passed, with false apprehensions 
of her danger. Whatever end may be designed, 
there is always something despicable in a trick. 

He became, as may be easily supposed, a fa- 
vourite of King William, who, the day after his 
accession, made him lord-chamberlain of the 
household, and gave him afterwards the garter. 
He happened to be among those that were tos- 
sed with the King in an open boat sixteen hours, 
in very rough and cold weather, on the coast of 
Holland. His health afterwards declined ; and, 
on January 19, 1705-6, he died at Bath. 

He was a man whose elegance and judgment 
were universally confessed, and whose bounty 
to the learned and witty was generally known. 
To the indulgent affection of the public, Lord 
Rochester bore ample testimony in this remark — 
" I know not how it is, but Lord Buckhurst 
may do what he will, yet is never in the wrong. " 

If such a man attempted poetry, we cannot 
wonder that his works were praised. Dryden, 
whom, if Prior tells truth, he distinguished by 
his beneficence, and who lavished his blandish- 
ments on those who are not known to have so 
well deserved them, undertaking to produce au- 
thors of our own country superior to those of 
antiquity, says, " I would instance your Lord- 
ship in satire, and Shakspeare in tragedy." 
Would it be imagined that, of this rival to anti- 
quity, all the satires were little personal invec- 
tives, and that his longest composition was a 
song of eleven stanzas ? 

The blame, however, of this exaggerated 
praise falls on the encomiast, not upon the au- 
thor ; whose performances are, what they pre- 
tend to be, the effusions of a man of wit ; gay, 
vigorous, and any. His verses to Howard show 
great fertility of mind ; and his Dorinda has 
been imitated by Pope. 



STEPNEY. 



George Stepney, descended from the Stepneys 
of Pendigrast, in Pembrokeshire, was born at 
Westminster, in 1663. Of his father's condition 
or fortune I have no account.* Having re- 



* It has been conjectured that our Poet was either 
son or grandson of Charles, third son of Sir John 



ceived the first part of his education at West- 
minster, where he passed six years in the Col- 



Stepney, the first baronet of that family. See Gran- 
ger's History, vol. ii. p. 396, edit. 8vo. 1775. Mr. Cole 
says, the Poet's father was a grocer. Cole's MSS. in 
Brit. Mus.— C. 



J. PHILIPS. 



85 



lege, he went at nineteen to Cambridge,* where 
he continued a friendship begun at school with 
Mr. Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax. 
They came to London together, and are said to 
have been invited into public life by the Earl of 
Dorset. 

His qualifications recommended him to many 
foreign employments, so that his time seems to 
have been spent in negotiations. In 1692, he 
was sent envoy to the Elector of Brandenburgh ; 
in 1693, to the Imperial Court ; in 1694, to the 
Elector of Saxony ; in 1696, to the Electors of 
Mentz and Cologne, and the Congress at Franc- 
fort ; in 1698, a second time to Brandenburgh ; 
in 1699, to the King of Poland ; in 1701, again 
to the Emperor ; and in 1706, to the States- 
general. In 1697, he was made one of the com- 
missioners of trade. His life was busy, and not 
long. He died in 1707 ; and is buried in West- 
minster Abbey, with this epitaph, which Jacob 
transcribed :— 



H. S. E. 
Georgius Stepneius, Arrniger, 
Vir 
Ob Ingenii acumen, 
Literaruvn Scientiam, 
Morum Suavitatem, 
Rerum Usum, 
Virorum Amplissimorum Consuetudinem, 
Linguae, Styli, ac Vitas Elegantiam, 
Praeclara Officia cum Britanniae turn Europas 
praestita, 
Sua aetate multum celebratus, 
Apud posteros semper celebrandus ; 

Plurimaa Legationes obiit 

Ea Fide, Diligentia, ac Felicitate, 

Ut Augustissimorum Principum 

Gulielmi et Annae 

Spem in illo repositam 

Nunquam fefellerit, 
Haud rarb superaverit. 



Post longum honorum Curfum 

Brevi Temporis Spatio confectum, 

Cum Naturse parum, Famae satis vixerat, 

Animam ad altiora aspirantem placide efflavit. 

On the left hand. 

G. S. 

Ex Equestri Familia Stepneiorum, 

De Pendegrast, in Comitatu 

Pembrochiensi oriundus, 

Westmonasterii natus est, A. D. 1663. 

Electus in Collegium 

Sancti Petri Westmonast. A. 16r6. 

Sancti Triaitatis Cantab. 1682. 
Consiliariorum quibus Commercii 

Cura commissa est 1697. 

Chelseiae mortuus, et, comitante 

Magna Procerum 

Frequent.a, hue elatus, 1707. 

It is reported that the juvenile compositions 
of Stepney made grey authors blush. I know 
not whether his poems will appear such won- 
ders to the present age. One cannot always 
easily find the reason for which the world has 
sometimes conspired to squander praise. It is 
not very unlikely that he wrote very early as 
well as he ever wrote ; and the performances of 
youth have many favourers, because the authors 
yet lay no claim to public honours, and are 
therefore not considered as rivals by the distri- 
butors of fame. 

He apparently professed himself a poet, and 
added his name to those of the other wits in the 
version of Juvenal ; but he is a very licentious 
translator, and does not recompense his neglect 
of the author by beauties of his own. In 
his original poems, now and then, a happy 
line may perhaps be found, and now and then 
a short composition may give pleasure. But 
there is, in the whole, little either of the grace 
of wit, or the vigour of nature. 



i»^*wwwNvyr<«W'/wvv*^f*v^*vy*w*>^^ 



J. PHILIPS. 



John Philips was born on the 30th of Decem- 
ber, 1676, at Bampton, in Oxfordshire; of 
which place his father, Dr. Stephen Philips, 
archdeacon of Salop, was minister. The first 
part of his education was domestic; after which 
he was sent to "Winchester, where, as we are 



* He was entered of Trinity College, and took his 
master's degree in 1689.— H. 



told by Dr. Sewel, his biographer, he was soon 
distinguished by the superiority of his exercises ; 
and what is less easily to be credited, so much 
endeared himself to his schoolfellows, by his 
civility and good-nature, that they, without 
murmur or ilb-will, saw him indulged by the 
master with particular immunities. It is re- 
lated, that when he was at school, he seldom, 
mingled in play with the other boys, but retired 
to his chamber ; where his sovereign pleasure 
M 



86 



J. P H I L I P S. 



was to sit hour after hour, while his hair was 
combed by somebody, whose services he found 
means to procure.* 

At school he became acquainted with the 
poets, ancient and modern, and fixed his atten- 
tion particularly on Milton. 

In 1694, he entered himself at Christ-church, 
a college at that time in the highest reputation, 
by the transmission of Busby's scholars to the 
care first of Fell, and afterwards of Aldrich. 
Here he was distinguished as a genius eminent 
among the eminent, and for friendship particu- 
larly intimate with Mr. Smith, the author of 
" Phaedra and Hippolytus." The profession 
which he intended to follow was that of physic ; 
and he took much delight in natural history, of 
which botany was his favourite part. 

His reputation was confined to his friends 
and to the University ; till about 1703, he ex- 
tended it to a wider circle by the " Splendid 
Shilling," which struck the public attention 
with a mode of writing new and unexpected. 

This performance raised him so high, that, 
when Europe resounded with the victory of 
Blenheim, he was, probably with an occult op- 
position to Addison, employed to deliver the ac- 
clamation of the Tories. It is said that he 
would willingly have declined the task, but 
that his friends urged it upon him. It appears 
that he wrote this poem at the house of Mr. St. 
John. 

" Blenheim" was published in 1705. The next 
year produced his great work, the poem upon 
" Cider," in two books; which was received 
with loud praises, and continued long to be 
read, as an imitation of Virgil's " Georgic," 
which needed not shun the presence of the 
original. 

He then grew probably more confident of his 
own abilities, and began to meditate a poem on 
the " Last Day;" a subject on which no mind 
can hope to equal expectation. 

This work he did not live to finish; his 
diseases, a slow consumption and an asthma, 



* Isaac Vossius relates, that he also delighted in 
paving his hair combed when he could have it done 
by barbers, or other persons skilled in the rules of 
prosody. Of the passage that contains this ridicu- 
lous fancy, the following is a translation : — " Many 
people take delight in the rubbing of their limbs, and 
the combing of their hair; but these exercises would 
delight much more, if the servants at the baths, and 
of the barbers, were so skilful in this art, that they 
could express any measures with their fingers. I 
remember that more than once I have fallen into 
the bands of men of this sort, who could imitate any 
measure of songs in combing the hair, so as some- 
times to express very intelligibly iambics, trochees, 
dactyls, &c. from whence there arose to me no small 
delight." See his " Treatise de Poematum cantu et 
Viribus Rythmi." Oxon. 1673. p. 62.— H. 



put a stop to his studies, and on Feb. 15, 1708, 
at the beginning of his thirty-third year, put an 
end to his life. 

He was buried in the cathedral of Hereford ; 
and Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards lord-chan- 
cellor, gave him a monument in Westminster 
Abbey. The inscription at Westminster was 
written, as I have heard, by Dr. Atterbury, 
though commonly given to Dr. Freind. 

HIS EPITAPH AX HEREFORD : 



JOHANNES PHILIPS 



Obiit 15 die Feb. Anno. 



Dom. 1708. 

JEtat. suae 32. 



Cujus 
Ossa si requiras, hanc Urnam inspice : 
Si Ingenium nescias, ipsius Opera consule ; 
Si Tumulum desideras, 
Templum adi Westmonasteriense : 
Qualis quantusque Vir fuecit, 
Dicat elegans ilia & praeclara, 
Quae cenotaphium ibi decorat, 
Inscriptio. 
Quam interim erga Cognatos pius & officiosus, 

Testetur hoc saxum 

A Maria Philips Matre ipsius pientissima, 

Dilecti Filii Memoriae non sine Lacrymis dicatum. 



HIS EPITAPH AT WESTMINSTER. 

Herefordiae conduntur Ossa, 

Hoc in Delubro statuitur Imago, 

Britanniam omnem pervagatur Fama, 

JOHANNIS PHILIPS: 

Qui Viris bonis doctisque juxta char us, 

Immortale suum Ingenium, 

Eruditione multiplici excultum, 

Miro animi candore, 
Eximia morum simplicitate, 

Honestavit. 

Litterarum Amoeniorum sitim, 

Quam Wintoniaa Puer sentire coeperat, 

Inter JEdis Christi Alumnos jugiter explevit, 

In illo Musarum Domicilio 

Prasclaris ^Emulorum studiis exci'tatus, 

Optimia scribendi Magistris semper intentus, 

Carmina sermone Patrio composuit 

A Grsecis Latinisque fontibus feliciter deducta, 1 

Atticis Romanisque auribus omnino digna, 

Versuum quippe Harmoniam 

Rythmo didicerat. 

Autiquo illo, libero, multiformi 

Ad res ipsas apto prorsus, et attemperato, 

Non numeris in eundem fere orbem redeuntibus, 

Non Clausularum similiter cadentium sono 

Metiri : 
Uni in hoe laudis genere Miltono secundus, 

Primoque posne par. 

Res seu Tenues, seu Grandes, seu Mediocres 

Oman das sumserat, 

Nusquam, non quod decuit, 

Et videt, & assecutus est, 

Egregius, quocunque Stylum verteret, 

Fandi author, & Modorum artifeT". 

Fas sit Kuie. 



J. PHILIPS. 



87 



Aliso HcSt a tua Metrorum Lege discedere, 

O Poesis Anglicans Pater, atque Conditor, Chaucere, 

Alteruni tibi latus claudere, 

Vatuni certe Cineres, tuos undique stipantiura 

Non dedecebit Chorum. 

Simon Harcourt, Miles, 

Viri bend de se, de Litteris rneriti 

Quoad viveret Fautor, 

Post Obitum pie memor, 

Hoc illi Saxum poni voluit. 

J. Philips, Stephani, S. T. P. Archidiaconi 

Salop. Filius, natus est Bamptonias 

In agro Oxon, Dec. 30, 1676. 

Obiit Herefordiae Feb. 15, 1708. 

Philips has been always praised, without con- 
tradiction, as a man modest, blameless, and 
pious ; who bore narrowness of fortune without 
discontent, and tedious and painful maladies 
without impatience ; beloved by those that knew 
him, but not ambitioxis to be known. He was 
probably not formed for a wide circle. His con- 
versation is commended for its innocent gayety, 
which seems to have flowed only among his in- 
timates ; for I have been told, that he was in 
company silent and barren, and employed only 
upon the pleasure of his pipe. His addiction to 
tobacco is mentioned by one of his biographers, 
who remarks, that in all his writings, except 
" Blenheim," he has found an opportunity of 
celebrating the fragrant fume. In common life 
he was probably one of those who please by not 
offending, and whose person was loved because 
his writings were admired. He died honoured 
and lamented, before any part of his reputation 
had withered, and before his patron St. John 
had disgraced him. 

His works are few. The " Splendid Shilling" 
has the uncommon merit of an original design, 
unless it may be thought precluded by the an- 
cient Centos. To degrade the sounding words 
and stately construction of Milton, by an appli- 
cation to the lowest and most trivial things, gra- 
tifies the mind with a momentary triumph over 
that grandeur which hitherto held its captives 
in admiration ; the words and things are pre- 
sented with a new appearance, and novelty is 
always grateful where it gives no pain. 

But the merit of such performances begins 
and ends with the first author. He that should 
again adapt Milton's phrase to the gross inci- 
dents of common life, and even adapt it with 
more art, which would not be difficult, must 
yet expect but a small part of the praise which 
Philips has obtained ; he can only hope to be 
considered as the repeater of a jest. 

" The parody on Milton," says Gildon, " is 
the only tolerable production of its Author." 
This is a censure too dogmatical and violent. 
The poem of " Blenheim" was never denied to 
be tolerable, even by those who do not allow it 
supreme excellence. It is indeed the poem of a 
scholar, " all inexpert of war ;" of a man who 
writes books from books, and studies the world in 



a college. He seems to have formed his ideas of 
the field of Blenheim from the battles of the he- 
roic ages, or the tales of chivalry, with very lit- 
tle comprehension of the qualities necessary to 
the composition of a modern hero, which Addi- 
son has displayed with so much propriety. He 
makes Marlborough behold at a distance the 
slaughter made by Tallard, then haste to en- 
counter and restrain him, and mow his way 
through ranks made headless by his sword. 

He imitates Milton's numbers indeed, but 
imitates them very injudiciously. Deformity is 
easily copied ; and whatever there is in Milton 
which the reader wishes away, all that is obso- 
lete, peculiar, or licentious, is accumulated with 
great care by Philips. Milton's verse was har- 
monious, in proportion to the general state of 
our metre in Milton's age ; and, if he had writ- 
ten after the improvements made by Dryden, it 
is reasonable to believe that he would have ad- 
mitted a more pleasing modulation of numbers 
into his work; but Philips sits down with a re- 
solution to make no more music than he found ; 
to want all that his master wanted, though he is 
very far from having what his master had. 
Those asperities, therefore, that are venerable in 
the " Paradise Lost," are contemptible in the 
" Blenheim." 

There is a Latin ode written to his patron, 
St. John, in return for a present of wine and to- 
bacco, which cannot be passed without notice. 
It is gay and elegant, and exhibits several artful 
accommodations of classic expressions to new 
purposes. It seems better turned than the ode 
of Hannes.* 

To the poem on " Cider," written in imitation 
of the " Georgics," may be given this peculiar 
praise, that it is grounded in truth; that the 
precepts which it contains are exact and just ; 
and that it is therefore, at once, a book of enter- 
tainment and of science. This I was told by 
Miller, the great gardener and botanist, whose 
expression was, that " there were many books 
written on the same subject in prose, which do 
not contain so much truth as that poem." 

In the disposition of his matter, so as to inter- 
sperse precepts relating to the culture of trees 
with sentiments more generally alluring, and in 



* This ode I am willing to mention, because there 
seems to be an error in all the printed copies, which 
is, I find, retained in the last. They all read : 

Quam Gratiarum cura decentium 
OIO! labellis cui Venus insidet. 

The Author probably wrote, 

Quam Gratiarum cura decentium 

Ornat ; labellis cui Venus insidet.— Dr. J. 

Hannes was professor of chemistry at Oxford, 
and wrote one or two poems in the " Muss Angli- 
cans."— J. B. 



88 



J. PHILIPS. 



easy and graceful transitions from one subject to 
another, he has very diligently imitated his mas- 
ter ; hut he unhappily pleased himself with 
blank verse, and supposed that the numbers of 
Milton, which impress the mind with venera- 
tion, combined as they are with subjects of in- 
conceivable grandeur, could be sustained by im- 
ages which, at most, can rise only to elegance. 
Contending angels may shake the regions of 
heaven in blank verse ; but the flow of equal 
measures, and the embellishment of rhyme, 
must recommend to our attention the art of en- 
grafting, and decide the merit of the redstreak 
and pearmain. 

What study could confer, Philips had obtain- 
ed : but natural deficience cannot be supplied. 
He seems not born to greatness and elevation. 
He is never lofty, nor does he often surprise 
with unexpected excellence; but, perhaps, to his 
last poem may be applied what Tully said of the 
work of Lucretius, that it is written with much 
art, though with few blazes of genius. 

The following fragment, written by Edmund 
Smith, upon the works of Philips, has been 
transcribed from the Bodleian manuscripts. 

" A Prefatory Discourse to the poem on Mr. 
Philips, with a character of his writings. 

" It is altogether as equitable some account 
should be given of those who have distinguished 
themselves by their writings, as of those who 
are renowned for great actions. It is but rea- 
sonable they, who contribute so much to the 
immortality of others, should have some share 
in it themselves ; and since their genius only is 
discovered by their works, it is just that their 
■virtues should be recorded by their friends. 
For no modest men (as the person I write of 
was in perfection) will write their own pane- 
gyrics ; and it is very hard that they should go 
without reputation, only because they the more 
deserve it. The end of writing lives is for the 
imitation of the readers. It will be in the power 
of very few to imitate the Duke of Marlbo- 
rough ; we must be content with admiring his 
great qualities and actions, without hopes of fol- 
lowing them. The private and social virtues 
are more easily transcribed. The life of Cow- 
ley is more instructive, as well as more fine, 
than any we have in our language. And it is to 
be wished, since Mr. Philips had so many of the 
good qualities of that poet, that I had some of 
the abilities of his historian. 

" The Grecian philosophers have had their 
lives written, their morals commended, and 
their sayings recorded. Mr. Philips had all the 
virtues to which most of them only pretended, 
and all their integrity without any of their af- 
fectation. 

" The French are very just to eminent men 



in this point; not a learned man nor a poet can 
die, but all Europe must be acquainted with his 
accomplishments. They give praise and expect 
it in their turns; they commend their Patrus 
and Molieres as well as their Condes and Tu- 
rennes ; their Pellisons and Racines have their 
eulogies, as well as the Prince whom they cele- 
brate ; and their poems, their mercuries, and 
orations, nay, their very gazettes, are filled with 
the praises of the learned. 

" I am satisfied, had they a Philips among 
them, and known how to value him ; had they 
one of his learning, his temper, but above all of 
that particular turn of humour, that altogether 
new genius, he had been an example to their 
poets, and a subject of their panegyrics, and 
perhaps set in competition with the ancients, to 
whom only he ought to submit. 

" I shall therefore endeavour to do justice to 
his memory, since nobody else undertakes it. 
And indeed I can assign no cause why so many 
of his acquaintance (that are as willing and 
more able than myself to give an account of 
him) should forbear to celebrate the memory of 
one so dear to them, but only that they look up- 
on it as a work entirely belonging to me. 

" I shall content myself with giving only a 
character of the person and his writings, with- 
out meddling with the transactions of his life, 
which was altogether private : I shall only 
make this known observation of his family, 
that there was scarcely so many extraordinary 
men in any one. I have been acquainted with 
five of his brothers (of which three are still 
living,) all men of fine parts, yet all of a very 
unlike temper and genius. So that their fruit- 
ful mother, like the mother of the gods, seems 
to have produced a numerous offspring, all of 
different though uncommon faculties. Of the 
living, neither their modesty, nor the humour of 
the present age, permits me to speak : of the 
dead, I may say something. 

" One of them had made the greatest progress 
in the study of the law of nature and nations 
of any one I know. He had perfectly mastered, 
and even improved, the notions of Grotius, and 
the more refined ones of Puffendorf. He could 
refute Hobbes with as much solidity as some of 
greater name, and expose him with as much 
wit as Echard. That noble study, which re- 
quires the greatest reach of reason and nicety of 
distinction, was not at all difficult to him. 
'Twas a national loss to be deprived of one who 
understood a science so necessary, and yet so 
unknown in England. I shall add only, he 
had the same honesty and sincerity as the per- 
son I write of, but more heat : the former was 
more inclined to argue, the latter to divert : one 
employed his reason more ; the other his ima- 
gination : the former had been well qualified for 
those posts, which the modesty of the latter 



J. PHILIPS. 



S9 



made him refuse. His other dead brother would 
have been an ornament to the College of which 
he was a member. He had a genius either for 
poetry or oratory; and, though very young, 
composed several very agreeable pieces. In all 
probability he would have written as finely as 
his brother did nobly, He might have been the 
Waller, as the other was the Milton of his time. 
The one might celebrate Marlborough, the 
other his beautiful offspring. This had not been 
so fit to describe the actions of heroes as the vir- 
tues of private men. In a word, he had been 
fitter for my place ; and while his brother was 
writing upon the greatest men that any age ever 
produced, in a style equal to them, he might 
have served as a panegyrist on him. 

" This is all I think necessary to say of his 
family. I shall proceed to himself and his writ- 
ings ; which I shall first treat of, because I know 
they are censured by some out of envy, and 
more out of ignorance. 

" The ' Splendid Shilling,' which is far the 
least considerable, has the more general repu- 
tation, and perhaps hinders the character of the 
rest. The style agreed so well with the bur- 
lesque, that the ignorant thought it could be- 
come nothing else. Every body is pleased with 
that work. But to judge rightly of the other 
requires a perfect mastery of poetry and criti- 
cism, a just contempt of the little turns and 
witticisms now in vogue, and, above all, a per- 
fect understanding of poetical diction and de- 
scription. 

" All that have any taste for poetry will 
agree, that the great burlesque is much to be 
preferred to the low. It is much easier to make 
a great thing appear little, than a little one 
great : Cotton and others of a very low genius 
have done the former : but Philips, Garth, and 
Boileau, only the latter. » 

" A picture in miniature is every painter's 
talent ; but a piece for a cupola, where all the 
figures are enlarged, yet proportioned to the 
eye, requires a master's hand. 

" It must still be more acceptable than the 
low burlesque, because the images of the latter 
are mean and filthy, and the language itself 
entirely unknown to all men of good breeding. 
The style of Billingsgate would not make a 
very agreeable figure at St. James's. A gentle- 
man would take but little pleasure in language 
which he would think it hard to be accosted in, 
or in reading words which he could not pro- 
nounce without blushing. The lofty burlesque 
is the more to be admired, because, to write it, 
the author must be master of two of the most 
different talents in nature. A talent to find out 
and expose what is ridiculous, is very different 
from that which is to raise and elevate. We 
must read Virgil and Milton for the one, and 
Horace and Hudibras for the other. We know 
that the authors of excellent comedies have often 



failed in the grave style, and the tragedian as 
often in comedy. Admiration and laughter are 
of such opposite natures, that they are seldom 
created by the same person. The man of mirth 
is always observing the follies and weaknesses, 
the serious writer the virtues or crimes, oi 
mankind ; one is pleased with contemplating a 
beau, the other a hero : even from the same 
object they would draw different ideas : Achilles 
would appear in very different lights to Thersi- 
tes and Alexander ; the one would admire the 
courage and greatness of his soul ; the other 
would ridicule the vanity and rashness of his 
temper. As the satyrist says to Hannibal : 

1, curre per Alpes, 

Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias. 

" The contrariety of style to the subject 
pleases the more strongly, because it is more 
surprising; the expectation of the reader is 
pleasantly deceived, who expects an humble 
style from the subject, or a great subject from 
the style. It pleases the more universally, be- 
cause it is agreeable to the taste both of the 
grave and the merry ; but more particularly so 
to those who have a relish of the best writers, 
and the noblest sort of poetry. I shall produce 
only one passage out of this Poet, which is the 
misfortune of his galligaskins : 

My galligaskins, which have long withstood 
The winter's fury and encroaching frosts, 
By time subdu'd (what will not time subdue !) 

This is admirably pathetical, and shows very 
well the vicissitudes of sublunary things. 
The rest goes on to a prodigious height; and a 
man in Greenland could hardly have made a 
more pathetic and terrible complaint. Is it not 
surprising that the subject should be so mean, 
and the verse so pompous, that the least things 
in his poetry, as in a miscroscope, should grow 
great and formidable to the eye ; especially con- 
sidering that, not understanding French, he 
had no model for his style? that he should have 
no writer to imitate, and himself be inimitable? 
that he should do all this before he was twenty ; 
at an age which is usually pleased with a glare 
of false thoughts, little turns, and unnatural 
fustian ? at an age, at which Cowley, Dryden, 
and I had almost said Virgil, were inconsidera- 
ble; so soon was his imagination at its full 
strength, his judgment ripe, and his humour 
complete. 

" This poem was written for his own diver- 
sion, without any design of publication. It 
was communicated but to me ; but soon spread, 
and fell into the hands of pirates. It was put 
out, vilely mangled by Ben Bragge; and im- 
pudently said to be corrected by the author. This 
grievance is now grown more epidemical ; and 
no man now has a right to his own thoughts, or 



90 



J. PHILIPS. 



a title to his own writings. Xenophon answer- 
ed the Persian who demanded his arms, " We 
have nothing now left but our arms and our 
valour : if we surrender the one, how shall we 
make use of the other?" Poets have nothing 
but their wits and their writings ; and if they 
are plundered of the latter, I don't see what 
good the former can do them. To pirate, and 
publicly own it, to prefix their names to the 
works they steal, to own and avow the theft, 
I believe, was never yet heard of but in Eng- 
land. It will sound oddly to posterity, that, in 
a polite nation, in an enlightened age, under 
the direction of the most wise, most learned, 
and most generous encouragers of knowledge in 
the world, the property of a mechanic should 
be better secured than that of a scholar ! that 
the poorest manual operations should be more 
valued than the noblest products of the brain ! 
that it should be felony to rob a cobbler of a pair 
of shoes, and no crime to deprive the best author 
of his whole subsistence ; that nothing should 
make a man a sure title to his own writings but 
the stupidity of them ! that the works of Dryden 
should meet with less encouragement than those 
of his own Flecknoe, or Blackmore ! that 
Tillotson and St. George, Tom Thumb and 
Temple, should be set on an equal footing ! This 
is the reason why this very paper has been so 
long delayed; and, while the most impudent 
and scandalous libels are publicly vended by the 
pirates, this innocent work is forced to steal 
abroad as if it were a libel. 

" Our present writers are by these wretches 
reduced to the same condition Virgil was, when 
the centurion seized on his estate. But I don't 
doubt but I can fix upon the Maecenas of the 
present age, that will retrieve them from it. 
But, whatever effects this piracy may have upon 
us, it contributed very much to the advantage of 
Mr. Philips ; it helped him to a reputation 
Which he neither desired nor expected, and to 
the honour of being put upon a work of which 
he did not think himself capable ; but the event 
showed his modesty. And it was reasonable to 
hope, that he, who could raise mean subjects so 
high, should still be more elevated on greater 
themes ; that he, that could draw such noble 
ideas from a shilling, could not fail upon such a 
subject as the Duke of Marlborough, which is 
capable of heightening even the most low and 
trifling genius. And, indeed, most of the great 
works which have been produced in the world 
have been owing less to the poet than the patron. 
Men of the greatest genius are sometimes lazy, 
and want a spur ; often modest, and dare not 
venture in public, they certainly know their 
faults in the worst things ; and even their best 
things they are not fond of, because the idea of 
what they ought to be is far above what they are. 



This induced me to believe that Virgil desired his 
works might be burnt, had not the same Augus- 
tus, that desired him to write them, preserved 
them from destruction. A scribbling beau may 
imagine a poet may be induced to write, by the 
very pleasure he finds in writing ; but that is 
seldom, when people are necessitated to it. I 
have known men row, and use very hard labour 
for diversion which, if they had been tied to, 
they would have thought themselves very un- 
happy. 

" But to return to « Blenheim/ that work so 
much admired by some, and censured by others. 
I have often wished he had wrote it in Latin, 
that he might be out of the reach of thV empty 
critic, who could have as little understood his 
meaning in that language as they do his beauties 
in his own. 

" False Critics have been the plague of all ages : 
Milton himself, in a very polite court, has been 
compared to the rumbling of a wheelbarrow : he 
had been on the wrong side, and therefore could 
not be a good poet. And this, perhaps, may be 
Mr. Philips's case. 

" But I take generally the ignorance of his 
readers to be the occasion of their dislike. People 
that have formed their taste upon the French 
writers can have no relish for Philips ; they ad- 
mire points and turns, and consequently have 
no judgment of what is great and majestic ; he 
must look little in their eyes, when he soars 
so high as to be almost out of their view. I 
cannot therefore allow any admirer of the 
French to be a judge of « Blenheim,' nor any 
who takes Bouhours for a complete critic. He 
generally judges of the ancients by the moderns, 
and not the moderns by the ancients ; he takes 
those passages of their own authors to be really 
sublime which come the nearest to it ; he often 
calls that a noble and a great thought which is 
only a pretty and a fine one ; and has more in- 
stances of the sublime out of ' Ovid de Tristi- 
bus,' than he has out of all Virgil. 

" I shall allow, therefore, only those to be 
judges of Philips, who make the ancients, and 
particularly Virgil, their standard. 

" But before I enter on this subject, I shall 
consider what is particular in the style of Philips, 
and examine what ought to be the style of heroic 
poetry ; and next inquire how far he has come 
up to that style. 

" His style is particular, because he lays aside 
rhyme, and writes in blank verse, and uses old 
words, and frequently postpones the adjective to 
the substantive, and the substantive to the verb ; 
and leaves out little particles, a and the ; her, 
and his • and uses frequent appositions. Now 
let tis examine whether these alterations of style 
be conformable to the true sublime." 



WALSH. 



William Walsh, the son of Joseph Walsh, 
Esq. of Abberley, in Worcestershire, was born 
in 1663, as appears from the account of Wood, 
who relates that at the age of fifteen he became, 
in 1678, a gentleman commoner of Wadham 
College. 

He left the University without a degree, and 
pursued his studies in London and at home ; 
that he studied in whatever place, is apparent 
from the effect, for he became in Mr. Dryden's 
opinion the best critic in the nation. 

He was not, however, merely a critic or a 
scholar, but a man of fashion ; and, as Dennis re- 
marks, ostentatiously splendid in his dress. He 
was likewise a member of parliament and a 
courtier, knight of the shire for his native 
county in several parliaments ; in another the 
representative of Richmond in Yorkshire ; and 
gentleman of the horse to Queen Anne, under 
the Duke of Somerset. 

Some of his verses show him to have been a 
zealous friend to the Revolution ; but his poli- 
tical ardour did not abate his reverence or kind- 
ness for Dryden, to whom he gave a dissertation 
on Virgil's " Pastorals," in which, however 
studied, he discovers some ignorance of the laws 
of French versification. 

In 1705, he began to correspond with Mr. 
Pope, in whom he discovered very early the 
power of poetry. Their letters are written upon 
the pastoral comedy of the Italians, and those 
pastorals which Pope was then preparing to 
publish. 

The kindnesses which are first experienced are 
seldom forgotten. Pope always retained a 
grateful memory of Walsh's notice, and men- 
tioned him in one of his latter pieces among 



those that had encouraged his juvenile studies : 

Granville the polite, 

And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write. 

In his " Essay on Criticism" he had given 
him more splendid praise ; and, in the opinion 
of his more learned commentator, sacrificed a 
little of his judgment to his gratitude. 

The time of his death I have not learned. It 
must have happened between 1707, when he 
wrote to Pope, and 1711, when Pope praised 
him in his " Essay." The epitaph makes him 
forty-six years old: if Wood's account be right, 
he died in 1709. 

He is known more by his familiarity with 
greater men, than by any thing done or written 
by himself. 

His works are not numerous. In prose he 
wrote " Eugenia, a Defence of Women j" which 
Dryden honoured with a Preface. 

" Esculapius, or the Hospital of Fools," pub- 
lished after his death. 

" A Collection of Letters and Poems, amo- 
rous and gallant," was published in the volumes 
called Dryden's Miscellany, and some other oc- 
casional pieces. 

To his Poems and Letters is prefixed a very 
judicious Preface upon Epistolary Composition 
and Amorous Poetry. 

In his " Golden Age restored," there was 
something of humour, while the facts were re- 
cent ; but it now strikes no longer. In his imi- 
tation of Horace, the first stanzas are happily 
turned ; and in all his writings there are pleas- 
ing passages. He has, however, more elegance 
than vigour, and seldom rises higher than to be 
pretty. 



V*»*^/*<WVvv*vvwv>«»vvvvwvv^**\»#V'¥VS^^ 



DRYDEN* 



Of the great Poet, whose life I am about to de- 
lineate, the curiosity which his reputation must 



* The Life of Dryden, though in point of composi 
tion it is one of the most admirable of Johnson's pro- 



excite will require a display more ample than 
can now be given. His contemporaries, how- 



ductions, is in many particulars incorrect. Mr. Ma- 
lone, in the biography-prefixed to his " Prose Works " 



92 



DRYDEN. 



ever they reverenced his genius, left his life un- 
written ; and nothing therefore can be known 
beyond what casual mention and uncertain tra- 
dition have supplied. 

John Dryden was born August 9, 1631,* at 
Aldwinkle, near Oundle, the son of Erasmus 
Drydon, of Titchmersh ; who was the third son 
of Sir Erasmus Dryden, baronet, of Canons 
Ashby. All these places are in Northampton- 
shire ; but the original stock of the family was 
in the county of Huntingdon, f 

He is reported by his last biographer, Der- 
rick, to have inherited from his father an estate 
of two hundred a year, and to have been bred, 
as was said, an anabaptist. For either of these 
particulars no authority is given.}: Such a for- 
tune ought to have secured him from that po- 
verty which seems always to have oppressed 
him ; or, if he had wasted it, to have made him 
ashamed of publishing his necessities. But 
though he had many enemies, who undoubtedly 
examined his life with a scrutiny sufficiently 
malicious, I do not remember that he is ever 
charged with waste of his patrimony. He was, 
indeed, sometimes reproached for his first re- 
ligion. I am therefore inclined to believe that 
Derrick's intelligence was partly true, and part- 
ly erroneous. § 

From Westminster School, where he was in- 
structed as one of the King's scholars by Dr. 
Busby, whom he long after continued to reve- 
rence, he was, in 1650, elected to one of the 
Westminster scholarships at Cambridge. (| 

Of his school performances has appeared only 
a poem on the death of Lord Hastings, composed 
with great ambition of such conceits as, notwith- 
standing the reformation begun by Waller and 
Denham, the example of Cowley still kept in 
reputation. Lord Hastings died of the small- 



has collected a much more ample and accurate 
account; and from that valuable work several dates 
and other particulars have been here set right. — 
J. B. 

* Mr. Malone has lately proved tbat there is no 
satisfactory evidence for tbis date. The inscription 
©n Dryden's monument says only natus 1632. See 
Malone's Life of Dryden, prefixed to his " Critical 
and Miscellaneous Prose Works," p. 5, note— C. 

t Of Cumberland. Ibid. p. 10.— C. 

J Mr. Malone has furnished us with a detailed ac- 
count of our Poet's circumstances ; from which it 
appears that although he was possessed of a sufficient 
income in the early part of his life, he was consider- 
ably embarrassed at its close. — See Malone's Life, p. 
440.— J. B. 

§ Mr. Derrick's Life of Dryden was prefixed to a 
very beautiful and correct edition of Dryden's Mis- 
cellanies, published by the Tonsons in 1760, 4 vols. 
8vo. Derrick's part, however, was poorly executed, 
and the edition never became popular. — C. 

|| He went off to Trinity College, and was admitted 
to a bachelor's degree in Jan. 1653-4, and in 1657 was 
made master of arts. — C. 



pox ; and his poem has made of the pustules first 
rose-buds, and then gems : at last exalts them 
into stars ; and says, 

No comet need fortel his change drew on, 
Whose corpse might seem a constellation. 

At the University he does not appear to have 
been eager of poetical distinction, or to have la- 
vished his early wit either on fictitious subjects 
or public occasions. He probably considered, 
that he who proposed to be an author ought first 
to be a student. He obtained, whatever was the 
reason, no fellowship in the College. Why he 
was excluded cannot now be known, and it is 
vain to guess : had he thought himself injured, 
he knew how to complain. In the Life of Plu- 
tarch he mentions his education in the Collegfc 
with gratitude ; but, in a prologue at Oxford, 
he has these lines : 

Oxford to him a dearer name shall be 

Than his own mother university ; 

Thebes did his rude unknowing youth engage; 

He chooses Athens in hi3 riper age. 

It was not till the death of Cromwell, in 1 658, 
that he became a public candidate for fame,* by 
publishing " Heroic Stanzas on the late Lord 
Protector;" which, compared with the verses 
of Sprat and Waller, on the same occasion, were 
sufficient to raise great expectations of the rising 
Poet. 

When the King was restored, Dryden, like 
the other panegyrists of usurpation, changed his 
opinion, or his profession, and published " As- 
trea Redux, a Poem on the happy Restoration 
and Return of his most sacred Majesty King 
Charles the Second." 

The reproach of inconstancy was, on this oc- 
casion, shared with such numbers, that it pro- 
duced neither hatred nor disgrace ! if he changed, 
he changed with the nation. It was, however, 
not totally forgotten when his reputation raised 
him enemies. 

The same year, he praised the new King in a 
second poem on his restoration. In the " As- 
trea" was the line, 

An horrid stillness first invades the ear, 
And in that silence we a tempest fear— 

for which he was persecuted with perpetual ri- 
dicule, perhaps with more than was deserved. 
Silence is indeed mere privation ; and, so con- 
sidered, cannot invade; but privation likewise 
certainly is darkness, and probably cold; yet 
poetry has never been refused the right of as- 
cribing effects or agency to them as to positive 



* This is a mistake. His poem on the death of 
Lord Hastings appeared in a volume entitled " Tears 
of the Muses on the death of Henry Lord Hastings £ 
8vo. 1649." Maloue.— J. B. 



DRYDEN. 



93 



powers. No man scruples to say, that darkness 
hinders him from his work ; or that cold has 
killed the plants. Death is also privation ; yet 
who has made any difficulty of assigning to 
death a dart and the power of striking ? 

In settling the order of his works there is some 
difficulty; for, even when they are important 
enough to he formally offered to a patron, he 
does not commonly date his dedication ; the time 
of writing and publishing is not always the same ; 
nor can the first editions be easily found, if even 
from them could be obtained the necessary infor- 
mation. * 

The time at which his first play was exhibited 
is not certainly known, because it was not print- 
ed till it was, some years afterwards, altered and 
revived ; but since the plays are said to be print- 
ed in the order in which they were written, 
from the dates of some, those of others may be 
inferred; and thus it may be collected, that in 
1683, in the thirty-second year of his life, he com- 
menced a. writer for the stage ; compelled un- 
doubtedly by necessity, for he appears never to 
have loved that exercise of his genius, or to have 
much pleased himself with his own dramas. 

Of the stage, when he had once invaded it, he 
kept possession for many years ; not indeed 
without the competition of rivals who some- 
times prevailed, or the censure of critics, which 
was often poignant and often just ; but with 
such a degree of reputation, as made him at least 
secure of being heard, whatever might be the 
final determination of the public. 

His first piece was a comedy called " The 
Wild Gallant, "f He began with no happy 
auguries ; for his performance was so much dis- 
approved, that he was compelled to recal it, and 
change it from its imperfect state to the form in 
which it now appears, and which is yet suffi- 
ciently defective to vindicate the critics. 

I wish that there were no necessity* of fol- 
lowing the progress of his theatrical fame, or 
tracing the meanders of his mind through the 
whole series of his dramatic performances ; it 
will be fit, however, to enumerate them, and 
to take especial notice of those that are distin- 
guished by any peculiarity, intrinsic or concom- 
itant ; for the composition and fate of eight-and- 
twenty dramas include too much of a poetical 
life to be omitted. 

In 1664, he published « The Rival Ladies," 
which he dedicated to the Earl of Orrery, a 
man of high reputation both as a writer and as 
a statesman. In this play he made his essay of 
dramatic rhyme, which he defends, in his dedi- 
cation, with sufficient certainty of a favourable 



* The order of his plays has been accurately ascer- 
tained by Mr. Malone. — C. 

f The " Duke of Guise" was his first attempt in the 
drama, but laid aside and afterwards new modelled. 
— Sfce Malone, p. 51.— J. B. 



hearing; for Orrery was himself a writer of 
rhyming tragedies. 

He then joined with Sir Robert Howard in 
" The Indian Queen," a tragedy in rhyme. 
The parts which either of them wrote are not 
distinguished. 

" The Indian Emperor" was published in 
1667. It is a tragedy in rhyme, intended for a 
sequel to Howard's " Indian Queen." Of this 
connection notice was given to the audience by 
printed bills, distributed at the door ; an expe- 
dient supposed to be ridiculed in " The Rehear- 
sal," where Bayes tells how many reams he 
has printed, to instil' into the audience some 
conception of his plot. 

In this play is the description of Night, which 
Rymer has made famous by preferring it \to 
those of all other poets. 

The practice of making tragedies in rhyme 
was introduced soon after the Restoration, as it 
seems by the Earl of Orrery, in compliance 
with the opinion of Charles the Second, who 
had formed his taste by the French theatre ; and 
Dryden, who wrote, and made no difficulty of 
declaring that he wrote only to please, and who 
perhaps knew that by his dexterity of versifica- 
tion he was more likely to excel others in rhyme 
than without it, very readily adopted hi& mas- 
ter's preference. He therefore made rhyming 
tragedies, till, by the prevalence of manifest 
propriety, he seems to have grown ashamed of 
making them any longer. 

To this play is prefixed a vehement defence 
of dramatic rhyme, in confutation of the preface 
to " The Duke of Lerma," in which Sir 
Robert Howard had censured it. 

In 1667, he published " Annus Mirabilis, the 
Year of Wonders," which may be esteemed one 
of his most elaborate works. 

It is addressed to Sir Robert Howard by a 
letter, which is not properly a dedication ; and 
writing to a poet, he has interspersed many critical 
observations, of which some are common, and 
some perhaps ventured without much considera- 
tion. He began, even now, to exercise the 
domination of conscious genius, by recommend- 
ing his own performance : " I am satisfied that 
as the Prince and. General" [Rupert and Monk] 
" are incomparably the best subjects I ever had, 
so what I have written on them is much better 
than what I have performed on any other. As 
I have endeavoured to adorn my poem with 
noble thoughts, so much more to express those 
thoughts with elocution." 

It is written in quatrains, or heroic stanzas 
of four lines ; a measure which he had learned 
from the " Gondibert" of Davenant, and which 
he then thought the most majestic that the 
English language affords. Of this stanza he 
mentions the incumbrances, increased as they 
were by the exactness which the age required. 
It was throughout his life, very much his cus- 
N 



9 4 



DRYDEN. 



torn to recommend his works by representation 
of the difficulties that he had encountered, with- 
out appearing to have sufficiently considered, 
that where there is no difficulty, there is no praise. 

There seems to be, in the conduct of Sir 
Robert Howard and Dryden towards each 
other, something that is not now easily to be 
explained.* Dryden, in his dedication to the 
Earl of Orrery, had defended dramatic rhyme ; 
and Howard, in a preface to a collection of 
plays, had censured his opinion. Dryden vindi- 
cated himself in his " Dialogue on Dramatic 
Poetry :" Howard, in his preface to " the Duke 
of Lerma," animadverted on the vindication ; 
and Dryden, in a preface to " The Indian Em- 
peror," replied to the animadversions with 
great asperity, and almost with contumely. 
The dedication to this play is dated the year in 
which the " Annus Mirabilis" was published. 
Here appears a strange inconsistency; but 
Langbaine affords some help, by relating that 
the answer to Howard was not published in 
the first edition of the play, but was added 
when it was afterwards reprinted: and as 
" The Duke of Lerma" did not appear till 
1668, the same year in which the dialogue was 
published, there was time enough for enmity to 
grow up between authors, who, writing both 
for the theatre, were naturally rivals. 

He was now so much distinguished, that in 
1668f he succeeded Sir William Davenant as 
poet-laureat. The salary of the laureat had 
been raised in favour of Johnson, by Charles 
the First, from a hundred marks to one hun- 
dred pounds a year, and a tierce of wine: a 
revenue in those days not inadequate to the 
conveniences of life. 

The same year, he published his Essay on 
Dramatic Poetry, an elegant and instructive 
dialogue, in which we are told, by Prior, that 
the principal character is meant to represent the 
Duke of Dorset. This work seems to have 
given Addison a model for his Dialogues upon 
Medals. 

" Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen" (1668) 
is a tragi-comedy. In the preface he discusses 
a curious question, whether a poet can judge 
well of his own productions? and determines 
very justly, that, of the plan and disposition, 
and all that can be reduced to principles of 
science, the author may depend upon his own 
opinion; but that, in those parts where fancy 
predominates, self-love may easily deceive. He 
might have observed, that Avhat is good only 
because it pleases, cannot be pronounced good 
till it has been found to please. 



* See Malone, p. 91.— J. B. 

t He did not succeed Davenant till Aug. 18, 1670; 
but Mr. Malone informs us, that tie patent had a 
retrospect, and the salary commenced from the 
Alidsummur after D'Avenant's death. — C. 



I " Sir Martin Mar-all " (1668) is a comedy, 
published without preface or dedication, and at 

i first without the name of the author. Lang- 

| baine charges it, like most of the rest, with 
plagiarism ; and observes, that the song is tran- 
slated from Voiture, allowing however that both 

j the sense and measure are exactly observed. 

"The Tempest" (1670) is an alteration of 

! Shakspeare's play, made by Dryden in conjunc- 
tion with Davenant; "whom, " says he, " I 

■ found of so quick a fancy, that nothing was 
proposed to him in which he could not suddenly 

; produce a thought extremely pleasant and sur- 

| prising ; and those first thoughts of his, con- 
trary to the Latin proverb, were not always the 

I least happy ; and as his fancy was quick, so 
likewise were the products of it remote and 

' new. He borrowed not of any other ; and his 
imaginations were such as could not easily enter 
into any other man." 

The effect produced by the conjunction of 
these two powerful minds was, that to Shak- 
speare's monster, Caliban, is added a sister mon- 
ster, Sycorax; and a woman, who, in the 
original play, had never seen a man, is in this 
brought acquainted with a man that had never 
seen a woman. 

About this time, in 1673, Dryden seems to 
have had his quiet much disturbed by the suc- 
cess of " The Empress of Morocco," a tragedy 
written in rhyme by Elkanah Settle; which 
was so much applauded, as to make him think 
his supremacy of reputation in some danger. 
Settle had not only been prosperous on the 
stage, but, in the confidence of success, had pub- 
lished his play with sculptures and a preface of 
defiance. Here was one offence added to 
another ; and, for the last blast of inflammation, 
it was acted at Whitehall by the court ladies. 
Dryden could not now repress those emo- 
tions, which he called indignation, and others 
jealousy; but wrote upon the play and the de- 
dication such criticism as malignant impatience 
could pour out in haste. 

Of Settle he gives this character : " He's an 
animal of a most deplored understanding, with- 
out reading and conversation. His being is in 
a twilight of sense, and some glimmering of 
thought which he never can fashion into wit 
or English. His style is boistevous and rough 
hewn, his rhyme incorrigibly lewd, and his 
numbers perpetually harsh and ill-sounding. 
The little talent which he has, is fancy. He 
sometimes labours with a thought; but, with 
the pudder he makes to bring it into the world, 
'tis commonly still-born ; so that, for want of 
learning and elocution, he will never be able to 
express any thing either naturally or justly." 

This is not very decent ; yet this is one of the 
pages in which criticism prevails over brutal 
fury. He pi'oceeds : " He has a heavy hand at 
fools, and a great felicity in writing nonsense 



D R Y D E N. 



95 



for them. Fools they will be in spite of him. 
His king, his two empresses, his villain, and his 
sub- villain, nay, his hero, have all a certain na- 
tural cast of the father — their folly was born and 
bred in them, and something of the Elkanah 
will be visible." 

This is Dryden's general declamation ; I will 
not withhold from the reader a particular re- 
mark. Having gone through the first act, he 
says, " to conclude this act with the most rumb- 
ling piece of nonsense spoken yet : 

To flattering lightning our feign'd smiles conform, 
Which, back'd with thunder, do hut gild a storm. 

Conform a smile to lightning, make a smile imitate 
lightning, and flattering lightning ; lightning sure 
is a threatening thing. And this lightning must 
gild a storm. Now, if I must conform my smiles 
to lightning, then my smiles must gild a storm 
too : to gild with s?niles is a new invention of 
gilding. And gild a storm by being backed with 
thunder. Thunder is part of the storm ; so one 
part of the storm must help to gild another part, 
and help by backing ; as if a man would gild a 
thing the better for being backed, or having a 
load upon his back. So that here is gilding by 
conforming, smiling, lightning, backing, and thun- 
dering. The whole is as if I should say thus : I 
will make my counterfeit smiles look like a flat- 
tering stone-horse, which, being backed with a 
trooper, does but gild the battle. I am mis- 
taken if nonsense is not here pretty thick sown. 
Sure the poet writ these two lines a-board some 
smack in a storm, and, being sea-sick, spewed 
up a good lump of clotted nonsense at once." 

Here is perhaps a sufficient specimen ; but as 
the pamphlet, though Dryden's, has never been 
thought worthy of republication, and is not eas- 
ily to be found, it may gratify curiosity to quote 
it more largely : 

— Whene'er she bleeds, 
He no severer a damnation needs, 
Than dares pronounce the sentence of her death, 
Than the infection that attends that breath. 

" That attends that breath. — The poet is at breath 
again ; breath can never 'scape him ; and here he 
brings in a breath that must be infectious with 
pronouncing a sentence ; and this sentence is not 
to be pronounced till the condemned party bleeds ,• 
that is, she must be executed first, and sentenced 
after ; and the pronouncing of this sentence will 
be infectious ; that is, others will catch the dis- 
ease of that sentence, and this infecting of others 
will torment a man's self. The whole is thus : 
when she bleeds, thou needest no greater hell or tor- 
ment to thyself, than infecting of others by pronoimc- 
ing a sentence upon her. What hodge-podge does 
he make here ! Never was Dutch grout such , 
clogging, thick, indigestible stuff. But this is 



but a taste to stay the stomach ; we shall have a 
more plentiful mess presently. 

" Now to dish up the poet's broth, that I pro- 
mised : 

For when we're dead, and our freed souls enlarged, 

Of nature's grosser burden we're discharged, 

Then, gentle as a happy lover's sigh, 

Like wand'ring meteors through the air we'll fly 

And in our airy walk, as subtle guests, 

We'll steal into our cruel fathers' breasts, 

There read their souls, and track each passion's 

sphere, 
See how Revenge moves there, Ambition here ; 
And in their orbs view the dark characters 
Of sieges, ruins, murders, blood, and wars. 
We'll blot out all those hideous draughts, and write 
Pure and white forms ; then with a radiant light 
Their breasts encircle, till their passions be 
Gentle as nature in its infancy ; 
Till, soften'd by our charms, their furies cease, 
And tbeir revenge resolves into a peace. 
Thus by our death their quarrel ends, 
Whom hying we made foes, dead we'll make friends. 

" If this be not a very liberal mess, I will refer 
myself to the stomach of any moderate guest. 
And a rare mess it is, far excelling any West- 
minster white-broth. It is a kind of giblet por- 
ridge, made of the giblets of a couple of young 
geese, stodged full of meteors, orbs, spheres, track, 
hideous draughts, dark characters, white forms, and 
radiant lights, designed not only to please appetite, 
and indulge luxury ; but it is also physical, be- 
ing an approved medicine to purge choler ; for 
it is propounded, by Morena, as a recipe to cure 
their fathers of their choleric humours ; and, 
were it written in characters as barbarous as the 
words, might very well pass for a doctor's bill 
To conclude ; it is porridge, 'tis a recipe, 'tis a pig 
with a pudding in the belly, 'tis I know not 
what : for, certainly, never any one that pre- 
tended to write sense had the impudence before 
to put such stuff as this into the mouths of those 
that were to speak it before an audience, whom 
he did not take to be all fools ; and after that to 
print it too, and expose it to the examination of 
the world. But let us see what we can make of 
this stuff : 

For when we're dead, and our freed souls enlarged — 

" Here he tells what it is to be dead; it is to have 
our freed souls set free. Now, if to have a soul 
set free, is to be dead ; then, to have &freed soul 
set free, is to have a dead man die. 

Then, gentle as a happy lover's sigh ■ 

" They two like one sigh, and that one sigh like 
two wandering meteors, 

— Shall fly through the air — 



96 



DRYDEN. 



" That is, they shall mount above like falling 
stars, or else they shall skip like two Jacks with 
lanthorns, or Will with a wisp, and Madge 
with a candle." 

" And in the airy walk steal inio their cruel fa- 
ihirs' breasts, like subtle guests. So, that their fa- 
thers' breasts must be in an airy walk, an airy 
walk of a Jlier. And there they will read their 
souls, and track the spheres of their passions. That 
is, these walking fliers, Jack with a lanthorn, 
&c. will put on his spectacles, and fall a reading 
souls; and put on his pumps, and fall a track- 
ing of spheres: so that he will read and run, 
walk and fly, at the same time ! Oh ! nimble 
Jack ! Then he will see, how revenge here, how 

ambition there- The birds will hop about. And 

then view the dark characters of sieges, ruins, mur- 
ders, blood, and wars, in their orbs : track the cha- 
racters to their forms ! Oh ! rare sport for Jack ! 
Never was place so full of game as these breasts ! 
You cannot stir, but flush a sphere, start a cha- 
racter, or unkennel an orb !" 

Settle's is said to have been the first play em- 
bellished with sculptures ; those ornaments seem 
to have given poor Dryden great disturbance. 
He tries however to ease his pain by venting 
his malice in a parody, 

" The poet has not only been so imprudent 
to expose all this stuff, but so arrogant to defend 
it with an epistle; like a saucy booth-keeper, 
that, when he had put a cheat upon the peo- 
ple, would wrangle and fight with any that 
would not like it, or would offer to discover it ; 
for which arrogance our poet receives this cor- 
rection; and, to jerk him a little the sharper, I 
will not transpose his verse, but by the help of 
his own words transnonsense sense, that by my 
■tuff, people may judge the better what his is : 

Great Boy, thy tragedy and sculptures dono, 

From press and plates, in fleets do homeward run ; 

And, in ridiculous and humble pride, 

Their course in ballad-singers' baskets guide, 

Whose greasy twigs do all new beauties take, 

From the gay shows thy dainty sculptures make. 

Thy lines a mess of rhyming nonsense yield, 

A senseless tale, with flattering fustian 61V d. 

No grain of sense does in one line appear, 

Thy words big bulks of boisterous bombast bear. 

With noise they move, and from players' mouths 

rebound, 
When their tongues dance to thy words' empty 

sound, 
By thee iuspir'd the rumbling verses roll, 
As if that rhyme and bombast lent a soul ; 
And with that soul they seem taught duty too ; 
To huffing words does humble nonsense bow, 
As if it would thy worthless worth enhance, 
To th' lowest rank of fops thy praise advance, 
To whom, by instinct, all thy stuff" is dear: 
Their loud claps echo to the theatre. 
From breaths of fools thy commendation spreads, 
Fame sings thy praise with mouths of logger-heads. 
With noise and laughing each thy fustian greets, 
'Tis clapt by choirs of empty-headed cits, 



Who have their tribute sent, and homage given, 
As men in whispers send loud noise to heaven. 

" Thus I have daubed him with his own pud- 
dle : and now we are come from aboard hia 
dancing, masking, rebounding, breathing fleet : 
and, as if we had landed at Gotham, we meet 
nothing but fools and nonsense." 

Such was the criticism to which the genius of 
Dryden could be reduced, between rage and ter- 
ror; rage with little provocation, and terror 
with little danger. To see the highest mind 
thus levelled with the meanest, may produce 
some solace to the consciousness of weakness, 
and some mortification to the pride of wisdom. 
But let it be remembered that minds are not 
levelled in their powers but when they are first 
levelled in their desires. Dryden and Settle 
had both placed their happiness in the claps of 
multitudes. 

" An Evening's Love, or the Mock astrolo- 
ger," a comedy (1671,) is dedicated to the illus- 
trious Duke of Newcastle, whom he courts by 
adding to his praises those of his lady, not only 
as a lover but a partner of his studies. It is 
unpleasing to think how many names, once ce- 
lebrated, are since forgotten. Of Newcastle's 
works nothing is now known but his Treatise 
on Horsemanship. 

The preface seems very elaborately written, 
and contains many just remarks on the fathers 
of the English drama. Shakspeare's plots, he 
says, are in the hundred novels of Cinthio; 
those of Beaumont and Fletcher in Spanish 
stories ; Jonson only made them for himself. 
His criticisms upon tragedy, comedy, and farce, 
are judicious and profound. He endeavours to 
defend the immorality of some of his comedies 
by the example of former writers; which is 
only to say that he was not the first, nor perhaps 
the greatest offender. Against those that ac- 
cused him of plagiarism he alleges a favourable 
expression of the King : " He only desired that 
they, who accuse me of thefts, would steal him 
plays like mine ;" and then relates how much 
labour he spends in fitting for the English stage 
what he borrows from others. 

" Tyrannic Love, or the Virgin Martyr" 
(1672) was another tragedy in rhyme, conspi- 
cuous for many passages of strength and ele- 
gance, and many of empty noise and ridiculous 
turbulence. The rants of Maximin have been 
always the sport of criticism ; and were at 
length, if his own confession may be trusted, 
the shame of the writer. 

Of this play he has taken care to let the read- 
er know, that it was contrived and written in 
seven weeks. Want of time was often his ex- 
cuse, or perhaps shortness of time Was his pri- 
vate boast in the form of an apology. 

It was written before " The Conquest of Gra- 
nada," but published after it. The design is to 



D R Y D E N: 



97 



recommend piety. " I considered that pleasure 
was not the only end of poesy ; and that even 
the instructions of morality were not so wholly 
the business of a poet, as that the precepts and 
examples of piety were to he omitted; for to 
leave that employment altogether to the clergy, 
were to forget that religion was first taught in 
Verse, which the laziness or dulness of succeed- 
ing priesthood turned afterwards into prose." 
Thus foolishly could Dryden write, rather than 
not show his malice to the parsons. 

The two parts of " The Conquest of Grana- 
da" (1672) are written with a seeming determi- 
nation to glut the public with dramatic wonders, 
to exhibit in its highest elevation a theatrical 
meteor of incredible love and impossible valour, 
and to leave no room for a wilder flight to the 
extravagance of posterity. All the rays of ro- 
mantic heat, whether amorous or wai'like, glow 
in Almanzor by a kind of concentration. He is 
above all laws ; he is exempt" from all restraints • 
he ranges the world at will, and governs wher- 
ever he appears. He fights without inquiring 
the cause, and loves in spite of the obligations of 
justice, of rejection by his mistress, and of pro- 
hibition from the dead. Yet the scenes are, for 
the most part, delightful ; they exhibit a kind of 
illustrious depravity, and majestic madness, such 
as, if it is sometimes despised, is often reverenced, 
and in which the ridiculous is mingled with the 
astonishing. 

In the epilogue to the second part of " Th« 
Conquest of Granada," Dryden indulges his fa- 
vourite pleasure of discrediting his predecessors • 
and this epilogue he has defended by a long post- 
script. He had promised a second dialogue, in 
which he should more fully treat of the virtues 
and faults of the English poets, who have writ- 
ten in the dramatic, epic, or lyric way. This 
promise was never formally performed ; but, 
with respect to the dramatic writers^ he ha3 
given us in his prefaces, and in this postscript, 
something equivalent j but his purpose being to 
exalt himself by the comparison, he shows faults 
distinctly, and only praises excellence in general 
terms. 

A play thus written, in professed defiance of' 
probability, naturally drew upon itself the vul- 
tures of the theatre. One of the critics that at- 
tacked it was Martin Clifford, to whom Sprat 
addressed the Life of Cowley, with such vene- 
ration of his critical powers as might naturally 
excite great expectations of instruction from his 
remarks. But let honest credulity beware of 
receiving characters from contemporary writers. 
Clifford's remarks, by the favour of Dr. Percy, 
were at last obtained ; and, that no man may 
ever want them more, I will extract enough to 
satisfy all reasonable desire. 

In the first letter his observation is only 
general : " You do live," says he, " in as much 
ignorance and darkness as- you did in the womb; 



your writings are like a Jack-of-all- trades' shop ; 
they have a variety, but nothing of value ; and 
if thou art not the dullest plant-animal that ever 
the earth produced, all that I have conversed 
with are strangely mistaken in thee." 

In the second he tells him that Almanzor is 
not more copied from Achilles than from an- 
cient Pistol. " But I am," says he, " strange- 
ly mistaken if I have not seen this very Alman- 
zor of yours in seme disguise about this town, 
and passing under another name. Pr'ythee tell 
me true, was not this huffcap once the In- 
dian Emperor ? and at another time did he not 
call himself Maximin? Was not Lyndaraxa 
once called Almeria ? I mean, under Montezu- 
ma, the Indian Emperor. I protest and vow 
they are either the same, or so alike, that I can- 
not, for my heart, distinguish one » from the 
other. You are therefore a strange unconsci- 
onable thief ; thou art not content to steal from 
others, but dost rob thy poor wretched self 
too." 

Now was Settle's time to take his revenge. 
He wrote a vindication of his own lines ; and, 
if he is forced to yield any thing, makes his re- 
prisals upon his enemy. To say that his answer 
is equal to the censure, is no high commenda- 
tion. To expose Dryden's method of analyzing 
his expressions, he tries the same experiment 
upon the same description of the ships in " The 
Indian Emperor," of which however he does 
not deny the excellence ; but intends to show, 
that by studied misconstruction every thing may 
be equally represented as ridiculous. After so 
much of Dryden's elegant animadversions, justice 
requires that something of Settle's should be ex- 
hibited. The following observations are there- 
fore extracted from a quarto pamphlet of ninety- 
five pages : 

" Fate after him below with pain did move, 
And victory could scarce keep pace above. 

" These two lines, if he can show me any sense 
or thought in, or any thing but bombast and 
noise, he shall make me believe every word in 
his observations on ' Morocco' sense." 

" In the ' Empress of Morocco' were these 
lines : 

I'll travel then to some remoter sphere,* 

Till I find out new worlds, and crown you there." 

On which Dryden made this remark : 

" I believe our learned author takes a sphere 
for country ; the sphere of Morocco ; as if Mo- 
rocco were the globe of earth and water ; but a 
globe is no sphere neither, by his leave," &c. 
u So sphere must not be sense, unless it relates to 
a circular motion about a globe, in which sense 
the astronomers use it. I would desire him to 
expound those lines in « Granada : 



98 



DRYDEN. 



Ill to the turrets of the palace go. 

And add new fire to those that fight below. 

Thence, hero-like, with torches by my side, 

(Far be the omen though) my love I'll guide. 

No, like his better fortune I'll appear, 

With open arms, loose veil, and flowing hair, 

Just flying forward from my rolling sphere. 

I wonder if he be so strict, how he dares make 
so bold with the sphere himself, and to be so cri- 
tical in other men's writings. Fortune is 
fancied standing on a globe, not on a sphere, as he j 
told us in the first act. 

" Because ' Elkanah's Similes are the most 
unlike things to what they are compared in the 
world," I'll venture to start a simile in his 
' Annus Mirabilis : ' he gives this poetical des- 
cription of the ship called The London : 

The goodly London in her gallant trim, 

The phoenix-daughter of the vanquished old, 

Like a rich bride does on the ocean swim, 

And on her shadow rides in floating gold. 

Her flag aloft spread ruffling in the wind, 

And sanguine streamers seem'd the flood to fire : 

The Weaver, charm'd with what his loom design' d, 

Goes on to sea, and knows not to retire. 

With roomy decks her guns of mighty strength, 

Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves, 

Deep in her draught, and warlike in ber length, 

She seems a sea-wasp flying in the waves. 

What a wonderful pother is here, to make all these 
poetical beautifications of a ship ; that is, a phoe- 
nix in the first stanza, and but a ivasp in the last ; 
nay, to make his humble comparison of a wasp 
more ridiculous, he does not say it flies upon the 
waves as nimbly as a wasp, or the like, but it 
seemed a wasp. But our author at the writing 
of this was not in his altitudes, to compare 
ships to floating palaces : a comparison to the 
purpose was a perfection he did not arrive to till 
the Indian Emperor's days. But perhaps his si- 
militude has more in it than we imagine ; this 
ship had a great many guns in her, and they, 
put all together, made the sting in the wasp's 
tail ; for this is all the reason I can guess, why 
it seemed a wasp. But because we will allow 
him all we can to help out, let it be a phoenix sea- 
wasp, and the rarity of such an animal may do 
much towards heightening the fancy. 

" It had been much more to his purpose, if he 
had designed to render the senseless play little, 
to have searched for some such pedantry as this : 

Two ifs scarce make one possibility. 
If justice will take all, and nothing give, 
Justice, methinks, is not distributive. 
To die or kill you is the alternative. 
Rather than take your life, I will not live. 

' Observe how prettily our author chops logic 
in heroic verse. Three such fustian canting 
words as distributive, alternative, and two ifs, no 
man but himself would have come within the 
noise of. But he's a man of general learning 
and all comes into his play. 



" ' T would have done well too if he could hav 
met with a rant or two, worth the observation : 
such as, 

Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover's pace ; 

Leave months and weeks behind thee in thy race. 

" But surely the sun, whether he flies a lover' 
or not a lover's pace, leaves weeks and months, 
nay years too behind him in his race. 

" Poor Robin, or any other of the philo-ma- 
thematics, would have given him satisfaction in 
the point. 

If I could kill thee now, thy fate's so low, 
That I must stoop, ere I can give the blow. 
But mine is fixed so far above thy crown, 
That all thy men, 
Piled on thy back, can never pull it down. 

" Now where that is, Almanzor's fate is fix- 
ed, I cannot guess : but, wherever it is, I be- 
lieve Almanzor. and think that all Abdalla's 
subjects, piled upon one another, might not pull 
down his fate so well as without piling ; besides, 
I think Abdalla so wise a man, that if Alman- 
zor had told him that piling his men upon his 
back might do the feat, he would scarcely bear 
such a weight, for the pleasure of the exploit ; 
but it is a huff, and let Abdalla do it if he dare. 

The people like a headlong torrent go, 
And every dam they break or overflow. 
But, unopposed, they either lose their force, 
Or wind in volumes to their former course. 

A very pretty allusion, contrary to all sense or 
reason. Torrents, I take it, let them wind 
never so much, can never return to their former 
course, unless he can suppose that fountains can 
go upwards, which is impossible ; nay more, in 
the foregoing page he tells us so too ; a trick of 
a very unfaithful memory. 

Butcaa no more than fountains upward flow. 

Which of a torrent, which signifies a rapid stream, 
is much more impossible. Besides, if he goes to 
quibble, and say, that it is possible by art water 
may be made return, and the same water run 
twice in one and the same channel ; then he 
quite confutes what he says : for it is by being 
opposed, that it runs into its former course ; for 
all engines that make water so return, do it by 
compulsion and opposition. Or, if he means a 
headlong torrent for a tide, which would be ri- 
diculous, yet they do not wind in volumes bu< 
come fore-right back (if their upright lies 
straight to their former course), and that by op- 
position of the sea- water, that drives them back 
again. 

" And for fancy, when he lights of any thing, 
like it, 'tis a wonder if it be not borrowed. A.s 
here, for example of, I find this fanciful thought 
in his ' Ann. Mirab.' 



D R Y D E N. 



99 



Old father Thames rais'd up his reverend head : 
But fear'd the fate of Simoeis would return ; 
Deep in his ooze he sought his sedgy bed ; 
And shrunk his waters back into his urn. 

This is stolen from Cowley's * Davideis,' p. 9. 

Swift Jordan started, and straight backward fled, 
Hiding amongst thick reeds his aged head. 
And when the Spaniards their assault begin, 
At once beat those without and those within. 

" This Almanzor speaks of himself ; and sure 
for one man to conquer an army within the city, 
and another without the city, at once, is some- 
thing difficult : but this flight is pardonable to 
some we meet with in ' Granada;' Osmin, 
speaking of Almanzor, 

Who, like a tempest that outrides the wind, 
Made a just battle, ere the bodies join'd. 

Pray, what does this honourable person mean 
by a tempest that outrides the wind ! a tempest 
that outrides itself? To suppose a tempest with- 
out wind, is as bad as supposing a man to walk 
without feet ; for if he supposes the tempest to 
be something distinct from the wind, yet, as 
being the effect of wind only, to come before the 
cause is a little preposterous ; so that if he takes 
it one way, or if he takes it the other, those two 
ifs will scarcely make one possibility." Enough 
of Settle. 

" Marriage a-la-mode" (1678) is a comedy 
dedicated to the Earl of Rochester ; whom he 
acknowledges not only as the defender of his 
poetry, but the promoter of his fortune. Lang- 
baine places this play in 1673. The Earl of 
Rochester, therefore, was the famous Wilmot, 
whom yet tradition always represents as an 
enemy to Dryden, and who is mentioned by him 
with some disrespect in the preface to ' Juvenal. ' 

" The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery," 
a comedy (1673) was driven off the stage, against 
the opinion, as the Author says, of the bett judges. 
It is dedicated in a very elegant address to Sir 
Charles Sedley ; in which he finds an oppor- 
tunity for his usual complaint of hard treatment 
and unreasonable censure. 

" Amboyna" (1673) is a tissue of mingled dia- 
logue in verse and prose, and was perhaps 
written in less time than " The Virgin Martyr ;" 
though the Author thought not fit, either osten- 
tatiously or mournfully, to tell how little labour 
it cost him, or at how short a warning he pro- 
duced it. It was a temporary performance, 
written in the time of the Dutch Avar, to in- 
flame the nation against their enemies ; to whom 
he hopes, as he declares in his epilogue, to make 
his poetry not less destructive than that by 
which Tyrtaeiis of old animated the Spartans. 
This play was written in the second Dutch 
war, in 1673. 

" Troilus and Cressida" (1679) is a play 
altered from Shakspeare ; but so altered, that, 
even iu Langbaine's opinion, " the last scene in 



the third act is a masterpiece." It is introduced 
by a discourse on " the Grounds of Criticism in 
Tragedy," to which I suspect that Rymer's 
book had given occasion. 

" The Spanish Friar" (1681) is a tragi-comedy, 
eminent for the happy coincidence and coalition 
of the two plots. As it was written against the 
papists, it would naturally at that time have 
friends and enemies ; and partly by the popula- 
rity which it obtained at first, and partly by the 
real power both of the serious and risible part, 
it continued long a favourite of the public. 

It was Dryden's opinion, at least for some 
time, and he maintains it in the dedication of 
this play, that the drama required an alterna- 
tion of comic and tragic scenes ; and that it is 
necessary to mitigate by alleviations of merri- 
ment the pressure of ponderous events, and the 
fatigue of toilsome passions. " Whoever," says 
he, "cannot perform both parts is but half a 
writer for the stage." 

"The Duke of Guise," a tragedy (1683) 
written in conjunction with Lee, as " Oedipus" 
had been before, seems to deserve notice only 
for the offence which it gave to the remnant of 
the covenanters, and in general to the enemies 
of the court who attacked him with great vio- 
lence, and were answered by him ; though at 
last he seems to withdraw from the conflict, by 
transferring the greater part of the blame or 
merit to his partner. It happened that a con- 
tract had been made between them, by which 
they were to join in writing a play : and " he 
happened," says Dryden, "to claim the promise 
just upon the finishing of a poem, when I would 
have been glad of a little respite. — Two-thirds 
of it belonged to him ; and to me only the first 
scene of the play, the whole fourth act, and the 
first half, or somewhat more, of the fifth." 

This was a play written professedly for the 
party of the Duke of York, whose succession 
was then opposed. A parallel is intended be- 
tween the leaguers of France and the covenanters 
of England : and this intention produced the 
controversy. 

" Albion and Albanius" (1685) is a musical 
drama or opera, written, like " The Duke of 
Guise," against the republicans. With what 
success it was performed, I have not found. * - 

" The State of innocence and Fall of Man" 
(1675) is termed by him an opera : it is rather 
a tragedy in heroic rhyme, but of which the 
personages are such as cannot decently be ex- 
hibited on the stage. Some such production 
was foreseen by Marvel, who writes thus to 
Milton : 



* Downes says, it was performed on a very un- 
lucky day ; viz. that on which the Duke of Monmouth 
landed in the west : and he intimates, that the con- 
sternation into which the kingdom was thrown by 
this event was a reason why it was performed but sis 
times and was in general ill received. — H. 



100 



D R Y D E N. 



" Or if a work so infinite be spann'd, 

Jealous I was lest some less skilful hand 

(Such as disquiet always what is well, 

And by ill-imitating would excel,) 

Might hence presume the whole creation's day 

To change in scenes, and show it in a play." 

It is another of his hasty productions : for the 
heat of his imagination raised it in a month. 

This composition is addressed to the Princess 
of Modena, then Dutchess of York, in a strain 
of flattery which disgraces genius, and which it 
was wonderful that any man that knew the 
meaning of his own words could use without 
eelf-detestation. It is an attempt to mingle 
earth and heaven, hy praising human excellence 
in the language of religion* 

The preface contains an apology for heroic 
verse and poetic license ; by which is meant not 
any liberty taken in contracting or extending 
words, but the use of bold fictions and ambitious 
figures. 

The reason which he gives for printing what 
was never acted cannot be overpassed : " I was 
induced to it in my own defence, many hundred 
copies of it being dispersed abroad without my 
knowledge or consent ; and every one gathering 
new faults, it became at length a libel against 
me." These copies, as they gathered faults, 
were apparently manuscript, and he lived in an 
age very unlike ours, if many hundred copies 
of fourteen hundred lines were likely to be 
transcribed. An author has a right to print 
his own works, and need not seek an apology 
in falsehood; but he that could bear to write 
the dedication felt no pain in writing the pre- 
face. 

" Aureng Zebe" (1676) is a tragedy founded 
on the actions of a great prince then reigning, 
but over nations not likely to employ their cri- 
tics upon the transactions of the English stage. 
If he had known and disliked his own character, 
our trade was not in those times secure from his 
resentment. His country is at such a distance, 
that the manners might be safely falsified, and 
the incidents feigned : for the remoteness of 
place is remarked, by Racine, to afford the same 
conveniences to a poet as length of time. 

This play is written in rhyme, and has the 
appearance of being the most elaborate of all the 
dramas. The personages are imperial ; but the 
dialogue is often domestic, and therefore suscep- 
tible of sentiments accommodated to familiar in- 
cidents. The complaint of life is celebrated ; 
and there are many other passages that may be 
read with pleasure. 

This play is addressed to the Earl of Mul- 
grave, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, him- 
self, if not a poet, yet a writer of verses, and a 
critic. In this address Dryden gave the first 
hints of his intention to write an epic poem. He 
mentions his design in terms so obscure, that lie 
s&ems afraid kst his plan should be purloined, 



as, he says, happened to him when he told it 
more plainly in his preface to " Juvenal." 
" The design," says he, " you know is great, 
the story English, and neither too near the pre- 
sent times, nor too distant from them." 

" All for Love, or the World well Lost," 
(167S) a tragedy founded upon the story of An- 
tony and Cleopatra, he tells us, " is the only 
play which he wrote for himself:" the rest 
were given to the people. It is by universal 
consent accounted the work in which he has ad- 
mitted the fewest improprieties of style or cha- 
racter; but it has one fault equal to many, 
though rather moral than critical, that, by ad- 
mitting the romantic omnipotence of Love, he 
has recommended, as laudable and worthy of 
imitation, that conduct which, through all ages, 
the good have censured as vicious, and the bad 
despised as foolish. 

Of this play the prologue and the epilogue, 
though written upon the common topics of ma- 
licious and ignorant criticisms, and without any 
particular relation to the characters or incidents 
of the drama, are deservedly celebrated for their 
elegance and sprightliness. 

"Limberham, or the kind Keeper," (1680) is 
a comedy, which, after the third night, was pro- 
hibited as too indecent for the stage. What 
gave offence was in the printing, as the Author 
says, altered or omitted. Dryden confesses that 
its indecency was objected to ; but Langbaine, 
who yet seldom favours him, imputes its expul- 
sion to resentment, because it " so much exposed 
the keeping part of the town." 

" Oedipus" (1679) is a tragedy formed by 
Dryden and Lee, in conjunction, from the works 
of Sophocles, Seneca, and Corneille. Dryden 
planned the scenes, and composed the first and 
third acts. 

" Don Sebastian" (1690) is commonly esteemed 
either the first or second of his dramatic per- 
formances. It is too long to be all acted, and has 
many characters and many incidents : and 
though it is not without sallies of frantic dig- 
nity, and more noise than meaning*, yet, as it 
makes approaches to the possibilities of real life, 
and has some sentiments which leave a strong 
impression, it continued long to attract atten- 
tion. Amidst the distresses of princes, and the 
vicissitudes of empire, are inserted several scenes 
which the writer intended for comic ; but which, 
I suppose, that age did not much commend, and 
this would not endure. There are, however, 
passages of excellence universally acknowledged ; 
the dispute and the reconciliation of Dorax and 
Sebastian has always been admired. 

This play was first acted in 1690, after Dry- 
den had for some years discontinued dramatic 
poetry. 

" Amphytrion" is a comedy derived from 
Plautus and Moliere. The dedication is dated 
Oct. 1690. This play seems to have succeeded 



DRYDEN. 



101 



at its first appearance ; and was, 1 think, long 
considered as a very diverting entertainment. 

" Cleomenes" (1692) is a tragedy, only re- 
markable as it occasioned an incident related in 
the " Guardian," and allusively mentioned by 
Dryden in his preface. As he came out from 
the representation, he was accosted thus by some 
airy stripling : " Had I been left alone with a 
young beauty, I would not have spent my time 
like your Spartan." " That, Sir," said Dry- 
den, " perhaps is true ; but give me leave to tell 
you that you are no hero." 

" King Arthur" (1691) is another opera. It- 
was the last work that Dryden performed for 
King Charles, who did not live to see it exhi- 
bited, and it does not seem to have- been ever 
brought upon the stage.* In the dedication to 
the Marquis of Halifax, there is a very elegant 
character of Charles, and a pleasing account of 
his latter life. When this was first brought 
upon the stage, news that the Duke of Mon- 
mouth had landed was told in the theatre ; upon 
which the company departed, and " Arthur" 
was exhibited no more. 

His last drama was " Love Triumphant," a 
tragi-comedy. In his dedication to the Earl of 
Salisbury, he mentions " the lowness of fortune 
to which he has voluntarily reduced himself, 
and of which he has no reason to be ashamed." 

This play appeared in 1694. It is said to have 
been unsuccessful. The catastrophe, proceeding 
merely from a change of mind, is confessed by 
the Author to be defective. Thus he began and 
ended his dramatic labours with ill success. 

From such a number of theatrical pieces, it 
will be supposed, by most readers, that he must 
have improved his fortune ; at least that such 
diligence with such abilities must have set pe- 
nury at defiance. But in Drydcn's time the 
drama was very far from that universal appro- 
bation which it has now obtained. The play- 
house was abhorred by the puritans, and avoid- 
ed by those who desired the character of serious- 
ness or decency. A grave lawyer would have 
debased his dignity, and a young trader Would 
have impaired his credit, by appearing in those 
mansions of dissolute licentiousness. The pro- 
fits of the theatre, when so many classes of the 
people were deducted from the audience, were 
not great : and the poet had, for a long time, but 
a single night. The first that had two nights 
was Southern : and the first that had three was 
Rowe. There were, however, in those days, 
arts of improving a poet's profit, which Dry- 
den forbore to practise; and a play therefore 
Beldom produced hiin more than a hundred 
pounds by the accumulated gain of the third 
night, the dedication, and the copy. 

* This is a mistake. It was set to music by Pur- 
cell, and well received, and is yet a favourite enter 
tainment.— -H. 



Almost every piece had a dedication, written 
with such elegance and luxuriance of praise, as 
neither haughtiness nor avarice could be im- 
agined able to resist. But he seems to have 
made flattery too cheap. That praise is worth 
nothing of which the price is known. 

To increase the value of his copies, he often 
accompanied his work -with a preface of criti- 
cism ; a kind of learning then almost new in 
English language, and which he, who had con- 
sidered with great accuracy the principles of 
writing, was able to distribute copiously as oc- 
casions arose; By these dissertations the public 
judgment must have been much improved ; and 
Swift, who conversed with Dryden, relates that 
he regretted the success of his own instructions, 
and found his readers made suddenly too skilful 
to be easily satisfied. 

His prologues had such reputation, that for 
some time a play was considered as less likely to 
be well received, if some of his verses did not 
introduce it. The price of a prologue was two 
guineas, till, being asked to write one for Mr. 
Southern, he demanded three : " Not," said he, 
" young man, out of disrespect to you : but the 
players have had my goods too cheap."* 

Though he declares that in his own opinion 
his genius was not dramatic, he had great con- 
fidence in his own fertility; for he is said to 
have engaged, by contract, to furnish four plays 
a year. 

It is certain that in one year, 1678, j he pub- 
lished " All for Love," " Assignation," two 
parts of the " Conquest of Granada," " Sir 
Martin Mar-all," and the " State of Inno- 
cence;" six complete plays, with a celerity 
of performance, which, though all Langbaine's 
charges of plagiarism should be allowed, shows 
such facility of composition, such readiness of 
language, and such copiousness of sentiment, as, 
since the time of Lopez de Vega, perhaps no 
other author has ever possessed. 

He did not enjoy his reputation, however 
great, nor his profits, however small, without 
molestation. He had critics to endure, and ri- 
vals to oppose. The two most distinguished 
wits of the nobility, the Duke of Buckingham 
and Earl of Rochester declared themselves his 



* Johnson has here quoted from memory. War- 
burton is the original relator of this anecdote, who 
says he had it from Southern himself. According to 
him, Dryden's usual price, had been four guineas, 
and hfe made Southern pay six. In the edition of 
Southern's plays, 1764, we have a different deviation 
from the truth, Jive and ten guineas. Malone.-' 
J. B. 

t Dr. Johnson in this assertion was misled by 
Langbaine. Only one of these plays appeared in 
1678. Nor were there more than three in any one 
year. The dates are new added from the original 
editions. — It. 



o 



102 



DRYDEN. 



Buckingham characterised him, in 1671, by 
tile name of Bayes in " The Rehearsal ;" a 
farce which he is said to have written with 
the assistance of Butler, the author of " Hudi- 
bras ;" Martin Clifford, of the Charter-house ; 
and Dr. Sprat, the friend of Cowley, then his 
chaplain. Dryden and his friends laughed at 
the length of time, and the number of hands, 
employed upon this performance ; in which, 
though by some artifice of action it yet keeps 
possession of the stage, it is not possible now to 
find any thing that might not have been written 
without so long delay, or a confederacy so 
numerous. 

To adjust the minute events of literary his- 
tory is tedious and troublesome ; it requires 
indeed no great force of understanding, but 
often depends upon inquiries which there is no 
opportunity of making, or is to be fetched from 
books and pamphlets not always at hand. 

" The Rehearsal" was played in 1671,* and 
yet is represented as ridiculing passages in " The 
Conquest of Granada" and " Assignation," 
which were not published till 1678 ; in " Mar- 
riage a-la-mode," published in 1673; and in 
" Tyrannic Love," in 1677. These contradic- 
tions show how rashly satire is applied. f 

It is said that this farce was originally intend- 
ed against Davenant, who, in the first draught, 
was characterised by the name of Bilboa. 
Davenant had been a soldier and an adven- 
turer. 

There is one passage in " The Rehearsal" 
still remaining, which seems to have related 
originally to Davenant. Bayes hurts his nose, 
and comes in with brown paper applied to the 
bruise ; how this affected Dryden does not ap- 
pear. Davenant's nose had suffered such dimi- 
nution by mishaps among the women, that a 
patch upon that part evidently denoted him. 

It is said likewise that Sir Robert HoAvard 
was once meant. The design was probably to 



* It was published in 1672.— R. 
' f There is no contradiction, according to Mr. Ma- 
lone, but what arises from Dr. Johnson's having 
copied the erroneous dates assigned to these plays 
by Langbaine. — C. 

This remark, as Mr. Malone observes, is founded 
upon the erroneous dates with which Johnson was 
supplied by Langbaine. " The Rehearsal" was 
played in 1671, but not published till the next year. 
* The Wild Gallant" was printed in 1669 ; " The 
Maiden Queen" in 1668 : " Tyrannic Love" in 1670 ; 
the two parts of " Granada" were performed in 
1669 and 1670, though not printed till 1672. Additions 
were afterwards made to " The Rehearsal," and 
among these are the " Parodies on Assignation," 
which are not to be found in Buckingham's play, as 
it originally appeared. Mr. Malone denies that there 
is any allusion to " Marriage a-la-mode." See Ma- 
lone, p. 100.-— J. B. 



ridicule the reigning poet, whoever he might 
be. 

Much of the personal satire, to which it 
might owe its first reception, is now lost or 
obscured. Bayes probably imitated the dress, 
and mimicked the manner of Dryden : the cant 
words which are so often in his mouth may be 
supposed to have been Dryden's habitual phras- 
es, or customary exclamations. Bayes, when 
he is to write, is blooded and purged ; this, as 
Lamotte relates himself to have heard, was the 
real practice of the poet. 

There were other strokes in " The Rehearsal" 
by which malice was gratified ; the debate be- 
tween Love and Honour, which keeps Prince 
Volscius in a single boot, is said to have alluded 
to the misconduct of the Duke of Ormond, who 
lost Dublin to the rebels while he was toying 
with a mistress. 

The Earl of Rochester, to suppress the reputa- 
tion of Dryden, took Settle into his protection, 
and endeavoured to persuade the public that its 
approbation had been to that time misplaced. 
Settle was a while in high reputation ; his 
"Empress of Morocco," having first delighted 
the town, was carried in triumph to Whitehall, 
and played by the ladies of the court. Now was 
the poetical meteor at the highest: the next 
moment began its fall. Rochester withdrew his 
patronage : seemingly resolved, says one of his 
biographers, "to have a judgment contrary to 
that of the town ;" perhaps being unable to en- 
dure any reputation beyond a certain height, 
even when he had himself contributed to raise it. 

Neither critics nor rivals did Dryden much 
mischief, unless they gained from his own tem- 
per the power of vexing him, which his frequent 
bursts of resentment give reason to suspect. He 
is always angry at some past, or afraid of some 
future censure ; but he lessens the smart of his 
wounds by the balm of his own approbation, 
and endeavours to repel the shafts of criticism 
by opposing a shield of adamantine confidence. 

The perpetual accusation produced against 
him, was that of plagiarism, against which he 
never attempted any vigorous defence ; for though 
he was perhaps sometimes injuriously censured, 
he would, by denying part of the charge, have 
confessed the rest; and, as his adversaries 
had the proof in their own hands, he, who 
knew that wit had little power against facts, 
wisely left, in that perplexity which it generally 
produces, a question which it was his interest to 
suppress, and which, unless provoked by vindi- 
cation, few were likely to examine. 

Though the life of a writer, from about thirty- 
five to sixty-three, maybe supposed to have been 
sufficiently busied by the composition of eight- 
and-twenty pieces for the stage, Dryden found 
room in the same space for many- other under- 
takings. 

But, how much soever he wrote, he was at 



DRYDEN. 



103 



least once suspected of writing more : for, in 
1679, a paper of verses, called " An Essay on 
Satire," was shown about in manuscript; by 
which the Earl of Rochester, the Dutchess of 
Portsmouth, and others, were so much provoked 
that, as was supposed (for the actors were never 
discovered), they procured Dryden, whom they 
suspected as the author, to be waylaid and 
beaten. This incident is mentioned by the 
Duke of Buckinghamshire,* the true writer, in 
his " Art of Poetry ;" where he says of Dryden, 

Though praised and beaten for another's rhymes, 
His own deserve as great applause sometimes. 

His reputation in time was such, that his 
name was thought necessary to the success of 
every poetical or literary performance, and there- 
fore he was engaged to contribute something, 
whatever it might be, to many publications. He 
prefixed the Life of Polybius to the translation of 
Sir Henry Sheers : and those of Lucian and Plu- 
tarch, to versions of their works by different 
hands. Of the English Tacitus he translated the 
first book: and, if Gordon be credited, translated it 
from the French. Such a charge can hardly be 
mentioned without some degree of indignation ; 
but it is not, I suppose, so much to be inferred, 
thatDryden wanted the literature necessary to the 
perusal of Tacitus, as that, considering himself 
as hidden in a crowd, he had no awe of the pub- 
lic ; and, writing merely for money, was con- 
tented to get it by the nearest way. 

In 1680, the Epistles of Ovid being translated 
by the poets of the time, among which one was 
the work of Dryden,f and another of Dryden 
and Lord Mulgrave, it was necessary to intro- 
duce them by a preface ; and Dryden, who on 
such occasions was regularly summoned, pre- 
fixed a discourse upon translation, which was 
then struggling for the liberty that it now en- 
joys. Why it should find any difficulty in 
breaking the shackles of verbal interpretation, 
which must for ever debar it from elegance, it 
would be difficult to conjecture, were not the 
power of prejudice every day observed. The 
authority of Jonson, Sandys, and Holiday, had 
fixed the judgment of the nation ; and it was 
not easily believed that a better way could be 
found than they had taken, though Fanshaw, 
Denham, Waller, and Cowley, had tried to give 
examples of a different practice. 

In 1681, Dryden became yet more conspicuous 
by uniting politics with poetry, in the memora- 
ble satire called " Absalom and Achitophel, 1 ' 



* Mentioned bj A. Wood, Athen. Oxon. vol. ii. 
604. 2d cd.— C. 

t Dryden translated two entire epistles, " Canace 
to Macareus," and " Dido to MneasJ-' " Helen to 
Yaris" was translated by him and Lord Mulgrave. 
Malone.— J. B. 



written against the faction which, by Lord 
Shaftesbury's incitement, set the Duke of Mon- 
mouth at its head. 

Of this poem, in which personal satire was 
applied to the support of public principles, and 
in which .therefore every mind was interested, 
the reception was eager, and the sale so large, 
that my father, an old bookseller, told me he 
had not known it equalled but by Sacheverell's 
Trial. 

The reason of this general perusal Addison 
has attempted to derive from the delight which 
the mind feels in the investigation of secrets : 
and thinks that curiosity to decipher the names 
procured readers to the poem. There is no need 
to inquire why those verses were read, which, to 
all the attractions of wit, elegance, and harmony, 
added the co-operation of all the factious pas- 
sions, and filled every mind with triumph or 
resentment. 

It could not be supposed that all the provoca- 
tion given by Dryden would be endured with- 
out resistance or reply. Both his person and 
his party were exposed in their turns to the 
shafts of satire, which, though neither so well 
pointed, nor perhaps so well aimed, undoubtedly 
drew blood. 

One of these poems is called " Dryden's Satire 
on his Muse;" ascribed, though, as Pope says, 
falsely, to Somers, who was afterwards chancel- 
lor. The poem, whosesoever it was, has much 
virulence, and some sprightliness. The writer 
tells all the ill that he can collect both of Dryden 
and his friends. 

The poem of " Absalom and Achitophel" had 
two answers now both forgotten ; one called 
" Azaria and Hushai ;"* the other, " Absalom 
Senior." Of these hostile compositions, Dry- 
den apparently imputes " Absalom Senior" 
to Settle, by quoting in his verse against 
him the second line. "Azaria and Hushai" 
was, as Wood says, imputed to him, though it 
is somewhat unlikely that he should write twice 
on the same occasion. This is a difficulty which 
I cannot remove, for want of a minuter know- 
ledge of poetical transactions. 

The same year he published " The Medal," of 
which the subject is a medal struck on Lord 
Shaftesbury's escape from a prosecution, by the 
ignoramus of a grand jury of Londoners. 

In both poems he maintains the same princi- 
ples, and saw them both attacked by the same 
antagonist. Elkanah Settle, who had answered 
" Absalom," appeared with equal courage in op- 
position to " The Medal ;" arid published an 
answer called " The Medal reversed," with sa 
much success in both encounters, that he left 



•"Azaria and Hushai" was written by Samuel 
Pordage, a dramatic writer of that time. — C. 



104 



D R Y D E N. 



the palm doubtful, and divided the suffrages of 
the nation. Such are the revolutions of fame, 
or such is the prevalence of fashion, that the 
nian, whose works have not yet been thought to 
deserve the care of collecting them, who died 
forgotten in an hospital, and whose latter years 
were spent in contriving shows for fairs, 
and carrying an elegy or epithalamium, of 
which the beginning and end were occasional- 
ly varied, but the intermediate parts were al- 
ways the same, to every house where there was 
a funeral or a wedding, might with truth have 
had inscribed upon his stone, 

Here lies the Rival and Antagonist of Dry den. 

Settle was, for his rebellion, severely chastised 
by Dryden, under the name of " Doeg," in the 
second part of " Absalom and Achitophel ;" and 
was, perhaps, for his factious audacity made 
the city poet, whose annual office was to describe 
the glories of the Mayor's day. Of these bards 
he was the last, and seems not much to have de- 
served even this degree of regard, if it was paid 
to his political opinions : for he afterwards 
wrote a panegyric on the virtues of Judge Jeffe- 
ries ; and what more could have been done by 
the meanest zealot for prerogative ? 

Of translated fragments, or occasional poems, 
to enumerate the titles, or settle the dates, would 
be tedious, with little use. It may be observed 
that, as Dryden' s genius was commonly excit- 
ed by some personal regard, he rarely "writes 
upon a general topic. 

Soon after the accession of King James, when 
thcdesign of reconciling the nation to the church 
of Rome became apparent,and the religion of the 
court gave the only efficacious title to its favours, 
Dryden declared himself a convert to popery. 
This at any other time might have passed with 
little censure. Sir Kenelm Digby embraced pope- 
ry; the two Reynolds's reciprocally converted 
one another ;* and Chilling worth himself was 
awhile so entangled in the wilds of controversy, 
as to retire for quiet to an infallible church. If 
men of argument and study can find such diffi- 
culties, or such motives as may either unite 
them to the church of Rome, or detain them in 
uncertainty, there can be no wonder that a man 
who perhaps never inquired why he was a pro- 
testant, should by an artful and experienced 
disputant be made a papist, overborne by the sud- 
den violence of new and unexpected arguments, 
or deceived by a representation which shows only 
the doubts on one part, and only the evidence oh 
the other. 



* Dr. John Reynolds, who lived temp. Jac. Y. was 
at first a zealous papist, and his brother William as 
earnest a protestant ; but, by mutual disputation, 
each converted the other. See Fuller's Church His- 
tory, p. M, Bock X.— H. 



That conversion will always be suspected that 
apparently concurs with interest. He that never 
finds his error till it hinders his progress towards 
wealth or honour, will not be thought to love 
truth only for herself. Yet it may easily hap- 
pen, that information may come at a commodi- 
ous time ; and as truth and interest are not by 
any fatal necessity at variance, that one may by 
accident introduce the other. When opinions 
are struggling into popularity, the arguments 
by which they are opposed or defended become 
more known ; and he that changes his profession 
would perhaps have changed it before, with the 
like opportunities of instruction. This was the 
then state of popery ; every artifice was used to 
show it in its fairest form ; and it must be 
owned to be a religion of external appearance 
sufficiently attractive. 

It is natural to hope that a comprehensive is 
likewise an elevated soul, and that whoever is 
wise is also honest. I am willing to believe 
that Dryden, having employed his mind, active 
as it was, upon different studies, and filled it, 
capacious as it "was, with other materials, came 
unprovided to the controversy, and wanted 
rather skill to discover the right, than virtue to 
maintain it. But inquiries into the heart are 
not for man ; we must now leave him to his 
Judge. 

The priests, having strengthened their cause 
by so powerful an adherent, were not long be- 
fore they brought him into action. They en- 
gaged him to defend the controversial papers 
found in the strong box of Charles II. ; and, 
what yet was harder, to defend them against 
Stillingfleet. 

With hopes of promoting popery, he was em- 
ployed to translate Maimbourg's History of the 
League ; which he published with a large intro- 
duction. His name is likewise prefixed to the 
English Life of Francis Xavier; but I know 
not that he ever owned himself the translator. 
Perhaps the use of his name -was a pious fraud ; 
which, however, seems not to have had much 
effect ; for neither of the books, I believp, were 
ever popular. 

The version of Xavier's Life is commended 
by Brown, in a pamphlet not written to flatter; 
and the occasion of it is said to have been, that 
the Queen, when she solicited a son, made 
vows to him as her tutelary saint. 

He was supposed to have undertaken to trans- 
late Yarillas's " History of Heresies ;" and 
when Burnet published remarks upon it, to 
have written an Answer;* upon which Burnet 
makes the following observation : 

" I have been informed from England, that a 
gentleman who is famous both for poetry and 
several other things, had spent three months in 



This is a mistake. See Malone, p. 194, &c— C 



DRYDEN. 



105 



translating M. Varillas's History ; but that, as 
soon as my Reflections appeared, he discon- 
tinued his labour, finding- the credit of his 
author was gone. Now, if he thinks it is re- 
covered by his Answer, he will perhaps go on 
with his translation ; and this may be, for 
aught I know, as good an entertainment for 
him as the conversation that he had set on be- 
tween the Hinds and Panthers, and all the rest 
of animals, for whom M. Varillas may serve 
well enough as an author ; and this history and 
that poem are such extraordinary things of their 
kind, that it will be but suitable to see the 
author of the worst poem become likewise the 
translator of the worst history that the age has 
produced. If his grace and his wit improve 
both proportionably, he will hardly find that 
he has gained much by the change he has made, 
from having no religion, to choose one of the 
worst. It is true, he had somewhat to sink 
from in matter of wit ; but, as for his morals, 
it is scarcely possible for him to grow a worse 
man than he was. He has lately wreaked his 
malice on me for spoiling his three months' 
labour ; but in it he has done me all the honour 
that any man can receive from him, which is to 
be railed at by him. If I had ill-nature enough 
to prompt me to wish a very bad wish for him, 
it should be, that he would go on and finish his 
translation. By that it will appear, whether 
the English nation, Avhich is the most .compe- 
tent judge in this matter, has, upon the seeing 
our debate, pronounced in M. Varillas's favour, 
or in mine. It is true, Mr. D. will suffer a 
little by it; but, at least, it will serve to keep 
him in from other extravagances ; and if he 
gains little honour by this work, yet he cannot 
lose so much by it as he has done by his last 
employment." 

Having probably felt his own inferiority in 
theological controversy, he was desirous*of try- 
ing whether, by bringing poetry to aid his argu- 
ments, he might become a more efficacious de- 
fender of his new profession. To reason in 
verse was, indeed, one of his powers ; but sub- 
tilty and harmony united, are still feeble, when 
opposed to truth. 

Actuated therefore by zeal for Rome, or hope 
of fame, he published " The Hind and Pan- 
ther," a poem in which the church of Rome, 
figured by the " milk-white Hind," defends her 
tenets against the church of England, repre- 
sented by the Panther, a beast beautiful, but 
spotted. 

A fable, which exhibits two beasts talking 
theology, appears at once full of absurdity ; and 
it was accordingly ridiculed in the " City 
Mouse and Country Mouse," a parody, written 
by Montague, afterwards Earl of "Halifax, and 
Prior, who then gave the first specimen of his 
abilities. 

The conversion of such a man, at such a time, 



was not likely to pass uncensured. Three dia- 
logues were published by the facetious Thomas 
Brown, of which the two first were called " Rea- 
sons of Mr. Bayes's changing his Religion;" 
and the third, " The Reasons of Mr. Hains the 
Player's Conversion and Re-conversion." The 
first was printed in 1688, the second not till 
1690, the third in 1691. The clamour seems to 
have been long continued, and the subject to 
have strongly fixed the public attention. 

In the two first dialogues Bayes is brought 
into the company of Crites and Eugenius, with 
whom he had formerly debated on dramatic 
poetry. The two talkers in the third are Mr. 
Bayes and Mr. Hains. 

Brown was a man not deficient in literature 
nor destitute of fancy; but he seems to have 
thought it the pinnacle of excellence to be a 
merry fellow ; and therefore laid out his powers 
upon small jests or gross buffoonery; so that his 
performances have little intrinsic value, and 
were read only while they were recommended 
by the novelty of the event that occasioned 
them. 

These dialogues are like his other works : 
what sense or knowledge they contained is dis- 
graced by the garb in which it is exhibited. 
One great source of pleasure is to call Dryden 
little Bayes. Ajax, who happens to be men- 
tioned, is " he that "wore as many cow-hides 
upon his shield as would have furnished half 
the King's army with shoe-leather." 

Being asked whether he had seen the " Hind 
and Panther," Crites answers; " Seen it! Mr. 
Bayes, why I can stir no where but it pursues 
me ; it haunts me worse than a pewter-buttoned 
sergeant does a decayed cit. Sometimes I meet 
it in a bandbox, when my laundress brings 
home my linen ; sometimes, whether I will or 
no, it lights my pipe at a coffee-house ; some- 
times it surprises me in a trunk-maker's shop ; 
and sometimes it refreshes my memory for me 
on the back side of a Chancery-lane parcel. 
For your comfort too, Mr. Bayes, I have not 
only seen it, as you may perceive, but have read 
it too, and can quote it as freely upon occasion 
as a frugal tradesman can quote that noble 
treatise, ' The Worth of a Penny,' to his ex- 
travagant 'prentice, that revels in stewed apples 
and penny custards." 

The whole animation of these compositions 
arises from a profusion of ludicrous and affected 
comparisons. " To secure one's chastity," says 
Bayes, " little more is necessary than to leave 
off a correspondence with the other sex, which, 
to a wise man, is no greater a punishment than 
it would be to a fanatic person to forbid seeing 
The Cheats and The Committee; or for my Lord 
Mayor and Aldermen to be interdicted the sight 
of The London Cuckolds." This is the general 
strain, and therefore I shall be easily excused 
the labour nf more transcription. 



106 



D R Y D E N. 



Brown does not wholly forget past transac- 
tions : " You began," says Crites to Bayes, " a 
very different religion, and have not mended 
the matter in your last choice. It was but rea- 
son that your Muse, which appeared first in a 
tyrant's quarrel, should employ her last efforts 
to justify the usurpation of the Hind.'''' 

Next year the nation was summoned to cele- 
brate the birth of the Prince. Now was the 
time for Dryden to rouse his imagination, and 
strain his voice. Happy days were at hand, 
and he was willing to enjoy and diffuse the an- 
ticipated blessings. He published a poem, filled 
with predictions of greatness and prosperity; 
predictions, of which it is not necessary to tell 
how they have been verified. 

A few months passed after these joyful notes, 
and every blossom of Popish Hope was blasted 
for ever by the Revolution. A papist now 
could be no longer laureat. The revenue, 
which he had enjoyed with so much pride and 
praise, was transferred to Shadwell, an old ene- 
my, whom he had formerly stigmatized by the 
name of Og. Dryden could not decently com- 
plain that he was deposed; but seemed very 
angry that Shadwell succeeded him, and has 
therefore celebrated the intruder's inauguration 
in a poem exquisitely satirical, called " Mac 
Flecknoe;"* of which the " Dunciad," as Pope 
himself declares, is an imitation, though more 
extended in its plan, and more diversified in its 
incidents. 

It is related by Prior, that Lord Dorset, 
when as chamberlain he was constrained to eject 
Dryden from his office, gave him from his own 
purse an allowance equal to the salary. This 
is no romantic or incredible act of generosity ; 
a hundred a year is often enough given to claims 
less cogent by men less famed for liberality. 
Yet Dryden always represented himself as suf- 
fering under a public infliction ; and once par- 
ticularly demands respect for the patience with 
which he endured the loss of his little fortune. 
His patron might, indeed, enjoin him to sup- 
press his bounty ; but, if he suffered nothing, 
he should not have complained. 

During the short reign of King James, he 
had written nothing for the stage,f being, in 
his opinion, more profitably employed in con- 
troversy and flattery. Of praise he might, per- 
haps, have been less lavish without inconve- 
nience, for James was never said to have much 
regard for poetry ; he was to be flattered only 
by adopting his religion. 



• All Dryden's biographers have misdated this 
poem, which Mr. Malone's more accurate researches 
prove to have been published on the 4th of October, 
1C82.— C. 

+ " Albion and Albanius" must however be ex- 
cepted.— R. 



Times were now changed : Dryden was no 

' longer the court poet, and was to look back for 

I support to his former trade; and having waited 

about two years, either considering himself as 

discountenanced by the public, or perhaps ex- 

; pecting a second revolution, he produced " Don 

Sebastian" in 1690; and in the next four years 

four dramas more. 

In 1693 appeared a new version of Juvenal 
and Persius. Of Juvenal he translated the first, 
third, sixth, tenth, and sixteenth satires ; and of 
Persius the whole work. On this occasion he 
introduced his two sons to the public, as nurse- 
lings of the Muses. The fourteenth of Juvenal 
was the work of John, and the seventh of 
Charles Dryden. He prefixed a very ample 
preface, in the form of a dedication to Lord 
Dorset ; and there gives an account of the de- 
sign which he had once formed to write an epic 
poem on the actions either of Arthur, or the 
Black Prince. He considered the epic as neces- 
sarily including some kind of supernatural agen- 
cy, and had imagined a new kind of contest be- 
tween the guardian angels of kingdoms, of whom 
he conceived that each might be represented 
zealous for his charge, without any intended 
opposition to the purposes of the Supreme Be- 
ing, of which all created minds must in part 
be ignorant. 

This is the most reasonable scheme of celes- 
tial interposition that ever was formed. The 
surprises and terrors of enchantments, which 
have succeeded to the intrigues and oppositions 
of pagan deities, afford very striking scenes, and 
open avast extent to the imagination; but, as 
Boileau observes (and Boileau will be seldom 
found mistaken), with this incurable defect, 
that, in a contest between Heaven and Hell, 
we know at the beginning which is to pre- 
vail; for this reason we follow Rinaldo to 
the enchanted wood with more curiosity than 
terror. 

In the scheme of Dryden, there is one great 
difficulty, which yet he would, perhaps, have 
had address enough to surmount. In a war 
justice can be but on one side; and, to entitle 
the hero to the protection of angels, he" must 
fight in defence of indubitable right. Yet some 
of the celestial beings, thus opposed to each o- 
ther, must have been represented as defending 
guilt. 

That this poem was never written, is reason- 
ably to be lamented. It would doubtless have 
improved our numbers, and enlarged our lan- 
guage ; and might perhaps have contributed by 
pleasing instructions to rectify our opinions, and 
purify our manners. 

What he required as the indispensable condi- 
tion of such an undertaking, a public stipend, 
was not likely in these times to be obtained. 
Riches were not become familiar to us ; nor had 
the nation vet learned to be liberal. 



D R Y D E N. 



107 



This plan he charged Blackmore with steal- 
ing ; " only," says he, " the guardian angels of 
kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him 
to manage." 

In 1694, he began the most laborious and 
difficult of all his works, the translation of Vir- 
gil ; from which he borrowed two months, that 
he might turn Fresnoy's " Art of Painting" 
into English prose. The preface, which he 
boasts to have written in twelve mornings, ex- 
hibits a parallel of poetry and painting, with a 
miscellaneous collection of critical remarks, such 
as cost a mind stored like his no labour to pro- 
duce them. 

In 1697, he published his version of the works 
of Virgil ; and, that no opportunity of profit 
might be lost, dedicated the " Pastorals" to the 
Lord Clifford, the " Georgics" to the Earl of 
Chesterfield, and the " iEneid" to the Earl of 
Mulgrave. This economy of flattery, at once 
lavish and discreet, did not pass without obser- 
vation. 

- This translation was censured by Milbourne, 
a clergyman, styled by Pope " the fairest of 
critics," because he exhibited his own ver- 
sion to be compared with that which he con- 
demned. 

His last work was his " Fables," published 
in consequence, as is supposed, of a contract 
now in the hands of Mr. Tonson : by which he 
obliged himself, in consideration of three hun- 
dred pounds, to finish for the press ten thousand 



In this volume is comprised the well-known 
" Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," which, as appear- 
ed by a letter communicated to Dr. Birch, he 
spent a fortnight in composing and correcting. 
But what is this to the patience and diligence of 
Boileau, whose " Equivoque," a poem of only 
three hundred and forty-six lines, took from his 
life eleven months to write it, and three years 
to revise it ? 

Part of his book of " Fables" is the first 
" Iliad" in English, intended as a specimen of 
a version of the whole. Considering into what 
hands Homer was to fall, the reader cannot but 
rejoice that this project went no further. 

The time was now at hand which was to put 
an end to all his schemes and labours. On the 
first of May, 1701, having been some time, as 
he tells us, a cripple in his limbs, he died, in 
Gerard Street, of a mortification in his leg. 

There is extant a wild story relating to some 
vexatious events that happened at his funeral, 
which, at the end of Congreve's Life, by a 
writer of I know not what credit, are thus re- 
lated, as I find the account transferred to a 
biographical dictionary : 

" Mr. Dryden dying on the Wednesday morn- 
ing, Dr. Thomas Sprat, then bishop of Ro- 
chester and dean of Westminster, sent the next 
day to the Lady Elizabeth Howard, Mr. Dry- 



den's widow, that he would make a present of 
the ground, which was forty pounds, with all 
the other Abbey-fees. The Lord Halifax like- 
wise sent to the Lady Elizabeth, and Mr. 
Charles Dryden her son, that, if they would 
give him leave to bury Mr. Dryden, he would 
inter him with a gentleman's private funeral, 
and afterwards bestow five hundred pounds on 
a monument in the Abbey; which, as they 
had no reason to refuse, they accepted. On the 
Saturday following the company came; the 
corpse was put into a velvet h~arse ; and 
eighteen mourning coaches, filled with company, 
attended. When they were just ready to 
move, the Lord Jefferies, son of the Lord 
Chancellor Jefferies, with some of his rakish 
companions, coming by, asked whose funeral it 
was : and, being told Mr. Dryden's, he said, 
' What, shall Dryden, the greatest honour and 
ornament of the nation, be buried after this 
private manner! No, gentlemen, let all that 
loved Mr. Dryden, and honour his memory, 
alight and join with me in gaining my Lady's 
consent to let me have the honour of his inter- 
ment, which shall be after another manner than 
this ; and I will bestow a thousand pounds on 
a monument in the Abbey for him.' The gen- 
tlemen in the coaches, not knowing of the 
Bishop of Rochester's favour, nor of the Lord 
Halifax's generous design (they both having, 
out of respect to the family, enjoined the Lady 
Elizabeth, and her son, to keep their favour 
concealed to the world, and let it pass for their 
own expense), readily came out of their coaches, 
and attended Lord Jefferies up to the Lady's 
bedside, who was then sick. He repeated the 
purport of what he had before said ; but she 
absolutely refusing, he fell on his knees, vowing 
never to rise till his request was granted. The 
rest of the company by his desire kneeled also ; 
and the Lady, being under a sudden surprise, 
fainted away. As soon as she recovered her 
speech, she cried, ]\ T o,no: 'Enough, gentlemen,' 
replied he ; ' my Lady is very good, she says, 
Go, go.'' She repeated her former words with 
all her strength, but in vain, for her feeble voice 
was lost in their acclamations of joy ; and the 
Lord Jefferies ordered the hearsemen to carry 
the corpse to Mr. Russel's, an undertaker in 
Cheapside, and leave it there till he should send 
orders for the embalmment, which, he added, 
should be after the royal manner. His direc- 
tions were obeyed, the company dispersed, 
and Lady Elizabeth and her son remained 
inconsolable. The next day Mr. Charles 
Dryden waited on the Lord Halifax and the 
Bishop, to excuse his mother and himself, 
by relating the real truth. But neither his 
Lordship nor the Bishop would admit of any 
plea; especially the latter, who had the Ab- 
bey lighted, the ground opened, the choir at- 
tending, an anthem ready set, and himself wait- 



108 



D R Y D E N. 



ing for some time without any corpse to bury. 
The undertaker, after three days expectance of 
orders for embalment without receiving any, 
waited on the Lord Jefferies ; who, pretending 
ignorance of the matter, turned it off with an 
ill-natured jest, saying, that those who observed 
the orders of a drunken frolic deserved no better ; 
he remembered nothing at all of it ; and that he 
might do what he pleased with the corpse. Upon 
this, the undertaker waited upon the Lady Eliza- 
beth and her son, an? 1 threatened to bring the 
corpse home, and set it before the door. They 
desired, a day's respite, which was granted. Mr. 
Charles Dryden wrote a handsome letter to the 
Lord Jefferies, who returned it with this cool 
answer : That he knew nothing of the matter, 
and would be troubled no more about it. He 
then addressed the Lord Halifax and the Bishop 
of Rochester, who absolutely refused to do any 
thing in it. In this distress Dr. Garth sent for 
the corpse to the College of Physicians, and pro- 
posed a funeral by subscription, to which him- 
self set a most noble example. At last a day, 
about three weeks after Mr. Dryden's decease, 
was appointed, for the interment. Dr. Garth 
pronounced a fine Latin oration, at the College, 
over the corpse ; which was attended to the Ab- 
bey by a numerous train of coaches. When the 
funeral was over, Mr. Charles Dryden sent a 
challenge to the Lord Jefferies, who refusing to 
answer it, he sent several others and went often 
himself ; but could neither get a letter delivered 
nor admittance to speak to him ; which so in- 
censed him, that he resolved, since his Lord- 
ship refused to answer him like a gentleman, 
that he would watch an opportunity to meet 
and fight off-hand, though with all the rules of 
honour ; which his Lordship hearing, left the 
town : and Mr. Charles Dryden could never 
have the satisfaction of meeting him, though he 
soi ght it till his death with the utmost applica- 
tion." 

This story I once intended to omit, as it ap- 
pears with no great evidence ; nor have I met 
with any confirmation, but in a letter of Far- 
quhar ; and he only relates that the funeral of 
Dryden was tumultuary and confused. * 



• An eirlier account of Dryden's funeral than that 
above cited, though without the circumstances that 
preceded it, is given by Edward Ward, who in his 
" London Spy," published in 1706, relates, that on 
the occasion there was a performance of solemn 
music at the College, and that at the procession , 
which himself saw, standing at the end of Chancery 
lane, Fleet-street, there was a concert of hautboys 
and trumpets. The day of Dryden's interment, he 
says, was Monday, the 13th of May, which, accord- 
ing to Johnson, was twelve days after his decease, 
and shows how long his funeral was in suspense. 
Ward knew not that the expense of it was defray- 
ed by subscription ; but compliments Lord Jefferies 
for so pious an undertaking. He also says, that the 



Supposing the story true, we may remark, 
that the gradual change of manners, though im- 
perceptible in the process, appears great when 
different times, and those not very distant, are 
compared. If at this time a young drunken 
Lord should interrupt the pompous regularity of 
a magnificent funeral, what would be the event 
but that he would be justled out of the way, and 
compelled to be quiet ? If he should thrust himself 
into a house he would be sent roughly away ; and 
what is yet more to the honour of the present 
time, I believe that those, who had subscribed to 
the funeral of a man like Dryden, would not, for 
such an accident, have withdrawn their contri- 
butions. * 

He was buried among the poets in Westmin- 
ster Abbey, where, though the Duke of New- 
castle had, in a general dedication prefixed by 
Congreve to his dramatic works, accepted thanks 
for his intention of erecting him a monument, 
he lay long without distinction, till the duke of 
Buckinghamshire gave him a tablet, inscribed 
only with the name of DRYDEN. 

He married the Lady Elizabeth Howard, 
daughter to the Earl of Berkshire, with cir- 
cumstances, according to the satire imputed to 
Lord Somers, not very honourable to either 
party : by her he had three sons, Charles, John, 
and Henry. Charles was usher of the palace to 
Pope Clement the Xlth ; and visiting England, 
in 1704, was drowned in an attempt to swim 
across the Thames at Windsor. 

John was author of a comedy called " The 
Husband his own Cuckold." He is said to have 
died at Rome. Henry entered into some reli- 
gious order. It is some proof of Dryden's sin- 
cerity, in his second religion, that he taught it to 
his sons. A man, conscious of hypocritical pro- 
fession in himself, is not likely to convert others ; 
and, as his sons were qualified, in 1693, to ap- 
pear among the translators of Juvenal, they 
must have been taught some religion before their 
father's change. 

Of the person of Dryden I know not any ac- 
count ; of his mind, the portrait, which has been 
left by Congreve, who knew him with great fa- 
miliarity, is such as adds our love of his man- 
ners to our admiration of his genius. " He was," 
we are told, " of a nature exceedingly humane 



cause of Dryden's death was an inflammation in his 
toe, occasioned by the flesh growing over the nail, 
which, being neglected, produced a mortification in 
his leg.— H. 

* In the Register of the College of Physicians, is 
the following entry : " May 3, 1700. Comitiis Cen- 
soriis ordinariis. At the request of several persons 
of quality, that Mr. Dryden might be carried from 
the College of Physicians to be interred at Westmin 
ster, it was unanimously granted by the President 
and Censois." 

This entry is not calculated to afford any credit to 
the narrative concerning Lord Jefferies, — R. 



DRYDEN. 



109 



and compassionate, ready to forgive injuries, 
and capable of a sincere reconciliation with those 
who had offended him. His friendship, where 
he professed it, went beyond his profession. He 
was of a very easy, of very pleasing access ; but 
somewhat slow, and, as it were, diffident in his 
advances to others : he had that in nature which 
abhorred intrusion into any society whatever. 
He was therefore less known, and consequently 
his character became more liable to misappre- 
hensions and misrepresentations : he was very 
modest, and very easily to be discountenanced 
in his approaches to his equals or superiors. As 
his reading had been very extensive, so was he 
very happy in a memory tenacious of every thing 
that he had read. He was not more possessed 
of knowledge than he was communicative of it ; 
but then his communication was by no means 
pedantic, or imposed upon the conversation, but 
just such, and went so far, as, by the natural 
turn of the conversation in which he was en- 
gaged, it was necessarily promoted or required. 
He was extremely ready and gentle in his cor- 
rection of the errors of any writer who thought 
fit to consult him, and full as ready and patient 
to admit the reprehensions of others, in respect 
of his own oversights or mistakes." 

To this account of Congreve nothing can be 
objected but the fondness of friendship; and to 
have excited that fondness in such a mind is no 
small degree of praise. The disposition of Dry- 
den, however, is shown in this character rather 
as it exhibited itself in cursory conversation, 
than as it operated on the more important parts 
of life. His placability and his friendship in- 
deed were solid virtues ; but courtesy and good- 
humour are often found with little real worth. 
Since Congreve, who knew him well, has told 
us no more, the rest must be collected as it can 
from other testimonies, and particularly from 
those notices which Dryden has very liberally 
given us of himself. 

The modesty which made him so slow to ad- 
vance, and so easy to be repulsed, was certainly 
no suspicion of deficient merit, or unconcious- 
ness of his own value: he appears to have 
known, in its whole extent, the dignity of his 
own character, and to have set a very high value 
on his own powers and performances. He pro- 
bably did not offer his conversation, because he 
expected it to be solicited ; and he retired from 
a cold reception, not submissive but indignant, 
with such deference of his own greatness as 
made him unwilling to expose it to neglect or 
violation. 

His modesty was by no means inconsistent 
with ostentatiousness ; he is diligent enough to 
remind the world of his merit, and expresses 
with very little scruple his high opinion of his 
own powers; but his self-commendations are 
read without scorn or indignation ; we allow 
his claims, and love his frankness. 



Tradition, however, has not allowed that his 
confidence in himself exempted him from jeal- 
ousy of others. He is accused of envy and in- 
sidiousness; and is particularly charged with 
inciting Creech to translate Horace that he 
might lose the reputation which Lucretius had 
given him. 

Of this charge we immediately discover that 
it is merely conjectural ; the purpose was such 
as no man would confess ; and a crime that ad- 
mits no proof, why should we believe ? 

He has been described as magisterially pre- 
siding over the younger writers, and assuming 
the distribution of poetical fame; but he who 
excels has a right to teach, and he whose judg- 
ment is incontestible may without usurpation 
examine and decide. 

Congreve represents him as ready to advise 
and instruct ; but there is reason to believe that 
his communication was rather useful than en- 
tertaining. He declares of himself that he was 
saturnine, and not one of those whose sprightly 
sayings diverted company ; and one of his cen- 
surers makes him say, 

Nor wine nor love could ever see me gay ; 
To writing bred, I knew not what to say. 

There are men whose powers operate only at 
leisure and in retirement, and whose intellectual 
vigour deserts them in conversation; whom 
merriment confuses, and objection disconcerts : 
whose bashfulness restrains their exertion, and 
suffers them not to speak till the time of speak- 
ing is past; or whose attention to their own 
character makes them unwilling to utter at 
hazard what has not been considered, and can- 
not be recalled. 

Of Dryden' s sluggishness in conversation it 
is vain to search or to guess the cause. He cer- 
tainly wanted neither sentiments nor language ; 
his intellectual treasures were great, though 
they were locked up from his own use. " His 
thoughts," when he wrote, "flowed in upon 
him so fast, that his only care was which to 
choose, and which to reject." Such rapidity of 
composition naturally promises a flow of talk ; 
yet we must be content to believe what an enemy 
says of him, when he likewise says it of himself. 
But, whatever was his character as a com- 
panion, it appears that he lived in familiarity 
with the highest persons of his time. It is re- 
lated, by Carte, of the Duke of Ormond, that 
he used often to pass a night with Dryden, and 
those with whom Dryden consorted ; who they 
were, Carte has not told, but certainly the con- 
vival table at which Ormond sat was not surv 
rounded with a plebeian society. He was in- 
deed reproached with boasting of his familiarity 
with the great : and Horace will support him 
in the opinion that to please superiors is not the 
lowest kind of merit. 

The merit of pleasing must, however, be estU 
J? 



110 



DRYDEN. 



mated by the weans. Favour is not always 
gained by good actions or laudable qualities. 
Caresses and preferments are often bestowed on 
the auxiliaries of vice, the procurers of pleasure, 
or the flatterers of vanity. Dryden has never 
been charged with any personal agency un- 
worthy of a good character : he abetted vice 
and vanity only with his pen. One of his ene- 
mies has accused him of lewdness in his con- 
versation ; but if accusation without proof be 
credited, who shall be innocent? 

His works afford too many examples of dis- 
solute licentiousness, and abject adulation ; but 
they were- probably, like his merriment, artifi- 
cial and constrained ; the effects of study and 
meditation, and his trade rather than his plea- 
sure. 

Of the mind that can trade in corruption, and 
can deliberately pollute itself with ideal wicked- 
ness for the sake of spreading the contagion in 
society, I wish not to conceal or excuse the de- 
pravity. Such degradation of the dignity of 
genius, such abuse of superlative abilities, can- 
not be contemplated but with grief and indigna- 
tion. What consolation can be had, Dryden 
has afforded, by living to repent, and to testify 
his repentance. 

Of dramatic immorality he did not want ex- 
amples among his predecessors, or companions 
among his contemporaries; but, in the mean- 
ness and servility of hyperbolical adulation, 1 
know not whether, since the days in which the 
Roman emperors were deified, he has been ever 
equalled, except by Afra Behn in an address to 
Eleanor Gwyn. When once he has under- 
taken the task of praise, he no longer retains 
shame in himself, nor supposes it in his patron. 
As many odoriferous bodies are observed to dif- 
fuse perfumes from year to year, without sen- 
sible diminution of bulk or weight, he appears 
never to have impoverished his mint of flattery 
by his expenses, however lavish. He had all 
the forms of excellence, intellectual and moral, 
combined in his mind, with' endless variation ; 
and, when he had scattered on the hero of the 
day the golden shower of wit and virtue, he had 
ready for him, whom he wished to court on the 
morrow, new wit and virtue with another 
stamp. Of this kind of meanness he never 
seems to decline the practice, or lament the ne- 
cessity : he considers the great as entitled to en- 
comiastic homage, and brings praise rather as a 
tribute than a gift, more delighted with the fer- 
tility of his invention, than mortified by the 
prostitution of his judgment. It is indeed not 
certain, that on these occasions his judgment 
much rebelled against his interest. There are 
minds which easily sink into submission, that 
look on grandeur with undistinguishing rever- 
ence, and discover no defect where there is ele- 
vation of rank and affluence of riches. 

With his praises of others and of himself is 



always intermingled a strain of discontent and 
lamentation, a sullen growl of resentment, or a 
querulous murmur of distress. His works are 
undervalued, his merit is unrewarded, and " he 
has few thanks to pay his stars that he was 
born among Englishmen." To his critics he 
is sometimes contemptuous, sometimes resent- 
ful, and sometimes submissive. The writer 
who thinks his works formed for duration, mis- 
takes his interest when he mentions his enemies. 
Pie degrades his own dignity by showing that 
he was affected by their censures, and gives last- 
ing importance to names, which left to them- 
selves, would vanish from remembrance. From 
this principle Dryden did not often depart ; his 
complaints are for the greater part general ; he 
seldom pollutes his pages with an adverse name. 
He condescended indeed to a controversy with 
Settle, in which he perhaps may be considered 
rather as assaulting than repelling ; and since 
Settle is sunk into oblivion, his libel remains 
injurious only to himself. 

Among answers to critics no poetical attacks, 
or altercations, are to be included ; they are like 
other poems, effusions of genius, produced as 
much to obtain praise as to obviate censure. 
These Dryden practised, and in these he ex- 
celled. 

Of Collier, Blackmore, and Milbourne, he 
has made mention in the preface of his " Fa- 
bles." To the censure of Collier, whose remarks 
may be rather termed admonitions than criti- 
cisms, he makes little reply ; being, at the age 
of sixty-eight, attentive to better things than 
the claps of a playhouse. He complains of Col- 
lier's rudeness, and the " horse-play of his rail- 
lery ;" and asserts, that, " in many places he has 
perverted by his glosses the meaning" of what 
he censures ; but in other things he confesses 
that he is justly taxed; and says, with great 
calmness and candour, " I have pleaded guilty 
to all thoughts or expressions of mine that can 
be truly accused of obscenity, immorality, or 
profaneness, and retract them. If he be my 
enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, 
he will be glad of my repentance." Yet as our 
best dispositions are imperfect, he left standing 
in the same book a reflection on Collier of great 
asperity, and indeed of more asperity than wit. 
Blackmore he represents as made his enemy 
by the poem of " Absalom and Achitophel," 
which " he thinks a little hard upon his fanatic 
patrons :" and charges him with borrowing the 
plan of his " Arthur" from the Preface to Ju- 
venal, " though he had," says he, " the base- 
ness not to acknowledge his benefactor, but in- 
stead of it to traduce me in a libel." 

The libel in which Blackmore traduced him 
was a " Satire upon Wit ;" ip which, having 
lamented the exuberance of false wit and the 
deficiency of true, he proposes thai all wit 
should be recoined before it is current, and ap- 



DRYDEN. 



Ill 



points masters of assay, who shall reject all 
that is light or debased. 

Tis true, that when the coarse and worthless dross 
Is purged away, there will be mighty loss : 
E'en Congreve, Southern, manly Wycherly, 
When thus refined, will grievous sufferers be. 
Into the melting pot when Dryden comes, 
What horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes I 
How will he shrink, when all his lewd allay 
And wicked mixture, shall be purged away I 

Thus stands the passage in the last edition; 
but in the original there was an abatement of 
the censure, beginning thus : 

But what remains will be so pure, 'twill bear 
TV examination of the most severe. 

Elackmore, finding the censure resented, and 
the civility disregarded, ungenerously omitted 
the softer part. Such variations discover a 
writer who consults his passions more than his 
virtue ; and it may be reasonably supposed that 
Dryden imputes his enmity to its true cause. 

Of Milbourne he wrote only in general terms, 
such as are always ready at the call of anger, 
whether just or not : a short extract will be suf- 
ficient. " He pretends a quarrel to me, that I 
have fallen foul upon priesthood ; if I have, I 
am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am 
afraid his share of the reparation will come to 
little. Let him be satisfied that he shall never 
be able to force himself upon me for an adver- 
sary ; I contemn him too much to enter into 
competition with him. 

As for the rest of those who have written 
against me, they are such scoundrels that they 
deserve not the least notice to be taken of them ; 
Blackmore and Milbourne are only distinguished 
from the crowd by being remembered to their 
infamy." 

Dryden indeed discovered, in many of his 
writings, an affected and absurd malignity to 
priests and priesthood, which naturally raised 
him many enemies, and which was sometimes 
as unseasonably resented as it was exerted. 
Trapp is angry that he calls the sacrificer in the 
"Georgics" the holy butcher: the translation is not 
indeed ridiculous ; but Trapp's anger arises from 
his zeal, not for the Author, but the priest ; as 
if any reproach of the follies of paganism could 
be extended to the preachers of truth. 

Dryden's dislike of the priesthood is imputed 
by Langbaine, and I think by Brown, to a re- 
pulse which he suffered when he solicited ordi- 
nation ; but he denies, in the preface to his 
" Fables," that he ever designed to enter into the 
church ; and such a denial he would not have 
hazarded, if he could have been convicted of 
falsehood. 

Malevolence to the clergy is seldom at a great 
distance from irreverence of religion, and Dryden 



affords no exception to this observation. His 
writings exhibit many passages, which, with aU 
the allowance that can be made for characters 
and occasions, are such as piety would not have 
admitted, and such as may vitiate light and 
unprincipled minds. But there is no reason for 
supposing that he disbelieved the religion which 
he disobeyed. He forgot his duty rather than 
disowned it. His tendency to profaneness is th 
effect of levity, negligence, and loose conversa- 
tion, with a desire of accommodating himself to 
the coiTuption of the times, by venturing to be 
wicked as far as he durst. When he professed 
himself a convert to popery, he did not pretend 
to have received any new conviction of the fun- 
damental doctrines of Christianity. 

The persecution of critics was not the worst of 
his vexations ; he was much more disturbed by 
the importunities of want. His complaints of 
poverty are so frequently repeated, either with 
the dejection of weakness sinking in helpless 
misery, or the indignation of merit claiming its 
tribute from mankind, that it is impossible not 
to detest the age which could impose on such a 
man the necessity of such solicitations, or not to 
despise the man who could submit to such solici- 
tations without necessity. 

Whether by the world's neglect, or his own 
imprudence, I am afraid that the greatest part 
of his life was passed in exigencies. Such out- 
cries were surely never uttered but in severe 
pain. Of his supplies or his expenses no proba- 
ble estimate can now be made. Except the sal- 
ary of the laureat, to which King James added 
the office of Historiographer, perhaps with some 
additional emoluments, his whole revenue seems 
to have been casual ; and it is well known that 
he seldom lives frugally who lives by chance. 
Hope is always liberal ; and they that trust her 
promises make little scruple of revelling to-day 
on the profits of the morrow. 

Of his plays the profit was not great ; and of 
the produce of his other works very little intel- 
ligence can be had. By discoursing with the 
late amiable Mr. Tonson, I could not find that 
any memorials of the transactions between his 
predecessor and Dryden had been preserved, ex- 
cept the following papers : 

" I do hereby promise to pay John Dryden 
Esq. or order, on the 25th of March, 1699, the 
sum of two hundred and fifty guineas, in consi- 
deration of ten thousand verses, which the said 
John Dryden, Esq. is to deliver to me, Jacob 
Tonson, when finished, whereof seven thousand 
five hundred verses, more or less, are already in 
the said Jacob Tonson's possession. And I do 
hereby farther promise, and engage myself to 
make up the said sum of two hundred and fifty 
guineas three hundred pounds sterling to the 
said John Dryden, Esq. his executors, adminis- 
trators, or assigns, at the beginning of the second 
impression of the said ten thousand verses. 



112 



D R Y D E N. 



" In witness whereof I have hereunto set my 
hand and seal, this 20th day of March, 1698-9. 
"Jacob Tonson. 
" Sealed and delivered, being 
first duly stamped, pursuant 
Jo the acts of Parliament for 
that purpose, in the pre- 
• sence of 

" Ben. Portlock, 
Will. Congreve." 

" March 24, 1698. 
" Received then of Mr. Jacob Tonson the sum 
of two hundred sixty-eight pounds fifteen shil- 
lings, in pursuance of an agreement for ten 
thousand verses, to be delivered by me to the said 
Jacob Tonson, whereof I have already delivered 
to him about seven thousand five hundred, more 
or less : he the said Jacob Tonson being obliged 
to make up the foresaid sum of two hundred 
sixty-eight pounds fifteen shillings three hundred 
pounds, at the beginning of the second impres- 
sion of the foresaid ten thousand verses ; 

" I say, received by me, 
"John Dryden. 
" Witness, Charles Dryden." 

Two hundred and fifty guineas, at 1/. Is. 6d. 
is268J. 15s. 

It is manifest, from the dates of this contract, 
that it relates to the volume of " Fables," which 
contains about twelve thousand verses, and for 
which therefore the payment must have been 
afterwards enlarged. 

I have been told of another letter yet remain- 
ing, in which he desires Tonson to bring him 
money, to pay for a watch which he had order- 
ed for his son, and which the maker would not 
leave without the price. 

The inevitable consequence of poverty is de- 
pendence. Dryden had probably no recourse in 
his exigencies but to his bookseller. The par- 
ticular character of Tonson I do not know ; but 
the general conduct of traders was much less li- 
beral in those times than in our own ; their 
views were narrower, and their manners grosser. 
To the mercantile ruggedness of that race, the 
delicacy of the poet was sometimes exposed. Lord 
Bolingbroke, who in his youth had cultivated 
poetry, related to Dr. King, of Oxford, that 
one day when he visited Dryden, they heard, as 
they were conversing, another person entering 
the house. " This," said Dryden, "is Tonson. 
You will take care not to depart before he goes 
away : for I have not completed the sheet which 
I promised him ; and if you leave me unpro- 
tected, I must suffer all the rudeness to which 
his resentment can prompt his tongue." 

What rewards he obtained for his poems, be- 
sides the payment of the bookseller, cannot be 
known. Mr. Derrick, who consulted some of 
his relations, was informed that his " Fables" 
obtained five hundred pounds from the Dutchess 



of Ormond; a present not unsuitable to the 
magnificence of that splendid family; and he 
quotes Moyle, as relating that forty pounds 
were paid by a musical society for the use of 
" Alexander's Feast." 

In those days the economy of government was 
yet unsettled, and the payments of the Exche- 
quer were dilatory and uncertain ; of this disor- 
der there is reason to believe that the laureat 
sometimes felt the effects; for, in one of his 
prefaces, he complains of those, who, being en- 
trusted with the distribution of the Prince's 
bounty, suffer those that depend upon it to 
languish in penury. 

Of his petty habits or slight amusements, 
tradition has retained little. Of the only two 
men whom I have fouud, to whom he was 
personally known, one told me that at the 
house which he frequented, called Will's Coffee- 
house, the appeal upon any literary dispute was 
made to him : and the other related, that his 
armed chair, which in the winter had a settled 
and prescriptive place by the fire, was in the 
summer placed in the balcony, and that he 
called the two places his winter and his sum- 
mer seat. This is all the intelligence which his 
two survivors afforded me. 

One of his opinions will do him no honour in 
the present age, though in his own time, at 
least in the beginning of it, he was far from 
having it confined to himself. He put great 
confidence in the prognostications of judicial 
astrology. In the Appendix to the Life of 
Congreve is a narrative of some of his predic- 
tions wonderfully fulfilled ; but I know not the 
writer's means of information, or character of 
veracity. That he had the configurations of 
the horoscope in his mind, and considered them 
as influencing the affairs of men, he does not 
forbear to hint. 

The utmost malice of the stars is pas*. — 
Now frequent trines the happier lights among, 
And high-rais'd Jove, from his dark prison freed, 
Those weights took off that on his planet hung, 
Will gloriously the new laid works succeed. 

He has elsewhere shown his attention to the 
planetary powers; and in the preface to his 
" Fables" has endeavoured obliquely to justify 
his superstition by attributing the same to some 
of the ancients. The letter, added to this nar- 
rative, leaves no doubt of his notions or prac- 
tice. 

So slight and so scanty is the knowledge which 
I have been able to collect concerning the pri- 
vate life and domestic manners of a man whom 
every English generation must mention with 
reverence as a critic and a poet. 



Dryden may be properly considered as 
the father of English criticism, as the writer 



DRYDEN. 



113 



who first taught us to determine upon princi- 
ples the merit of composition. Of our former 
poets, the greatest dramatist wrote without 
rules, conducted through life and nature hy a 
genius that rarely misled, and rarely deserted 
him. Of the rest, those who knew the laws of 
propriety had neglected to teach them. 

Two Arts of English Poetry were written in 
the days of Elizabeth by Webb and Puttenham, 
from which something might be learned, and a 
few hints had been given by Jonson and Cow- 
ley ; but Dryden's " Essay on Dramatic 
Poetry" was the first regular and valuable 
treatise on the art of writing. 

He who, having formed his opinions in the 
present age of English literature, turns back to 
peruse this dialogue, will not perhaps find much 
increase of knowledge, or much novelty of in- 
struction ; but he is to remember, that critical 
principles were then in the hands of a few, who 
had gathered them partly from the ancients, 
and partly from the Italians and French. The 
structure of dramatic poems was then not gen- 
erally understood. Audiences applauded by in- 
stinct; and poets perhaps often pleased by 
chance. 

A writer who has obtained his full purpose 
loses himself in his own lustre. Of an opinion 
which is no longer doubted, the evidence ceases 
to be examined. Of an art universally practised, 
the first teacher is forgotten. Learning once 
made popular is no longer learning ; it has the 
appearance of something which Ave have be- 
stowed upon ourselves, as the dew appears to 
rise from the field which it refreshes. . 

To judge rightly of an author, we must tran- 
sport ourselves to his time, and examine what 
were the wants of his contemporaries, and what 
were his means of supplying them. That 
which is easy at one time was difficult at 
another. Dryden at least imported his science, 
and gave his country what it wanted before ; or 
rather, he imported only the materials, and 
manufactured them by his own skill. 

The dialogue on the drama was one of his 
first essays of criticism, written when he was 
yet a timorous candidate for reputation, and 
therefore laboured with that diligence which he 
might allow himself somewhat to remit, when 
his name gave sanction to his positions, and his 
awe of the public was abated, partly by custom, 
and partly by success. It will not be easy to find, 
in all the opulence of our language, a treatise so 
artfully variegated with successive representa- 
tions of opposite probabilities, so enlivened with 
•magery, so brightened with illustrations. 
His portraits of the English dramatists are 
wrought with great spirit and diligence. The 
account of Shakspeare may stand as a perpe- 
tual model of encomiastic criticism ; exact 
without minuteness, and lofty without exagger- 
ation. The praise lavished by Longinusj on 



the attestation of the heroes of Marathon by 
Demosthenes, fades away before it. In a few 
lines is exhibited a character, so extensive in its 
comprehension, and so curious in its limitations, 
that nothing can be added, diminished, or re- 
formed; nor can the editors and admirers of 
Shakspeare, in all their emulation of reverence, 
boast of much more than of having diffused and 
paraphrased this epitome of excellence, of having 
changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower 
value, though of greater bulk. 

In this, and in all his other essays on the same 
subject, the criticism of Dryden is the criticism 
of a poet ; not a dull collection of theorems, nor 
a rude detection of faults, which perhaps the 
censor was not able to have committed ; but a 
gay and vigorous dissertation, where delight is 
mingled with instruction, and where the author 
proves his right of judgment by his power of 
performance. 

The different manner and effect with which 
critical knowledge may be conveyed, was per- 
haps never more clearly exemplified than in the 
performances of Rymer and Dryden. It was 
said of a dispute between two mathematicians, 
" malim cum Scaligero errare, quam cum 
Claviorecte sapere;" that "it was more eligi- 
ble to go wrong with one, than right with the 
other." A tendency of the same kind every 
mind must feel at the perusal of Dryden's pre- 
faces and Rymer's discourses. With Dryden 
we are wandering in quest of Truth ; whom we 
find, if we find her at all, dressed in the graces 
of elegance : and, if we miss her, the labour of 
the pursuit rewards itself; we are led only 
through fragrance and flowers. Rymer, with- 
out taking a nearer, takes a rougher way; 
every step is to be made through thorns and 
brambles ; and Truth, if we meet her, appears 
repulsive by her mien, and ungraceful by her 
habit. Dryden's criticism has the majesty of 
a queen ; Rymer's has the ferocity of a tyrant. 

As he had studied with great diligence the 
art of poetry, and enlarged or rectified his no- 
tions, by experience perpetually increasing, he 
had his mind stored with principles and obser- 
vations ; he poured out his knowledge with lit- 
tle labour; for of labour, notwithstanding the 
multiplicity of his productions, there is suffi- 
cient reason to suspect that he was not a lover. 
To write con amove, with fondness for the em- 
ployment, with perpetual touches and retouches, 
with unwillingness to take leave of his own 
idea, and an unwearied pursuit of unattainable 
perfection, was, I think, no part of his char-, 
acter. 

His criticism may be considered as general of 
occasional. In his general precepts, which de- 
pend upon the nature of things, and the struc- 
ture of the human mind, he may doubtless be 
safely recommended to the confidence of the 
reader ; but his occasional and particular posi- 



114 



DRYDEN. 



tions were sometimes interested, sometimes neg- 
ligent, and sometimes capricious. It is not 
without reason that Trapp, speaking of the 
praises which he bestows on Palamon and 
Arcite, says, " Novimus judicium Drydeni de 
poemate quodam Chauceri, pulchro sane illo, et 
admodum laudando, nimirum quod non modo 
vere epieum sit, set Iliada etiam atque JEneada 
sequet, imo superet. Sed novimus eodem tem- 
pore viri illius maximi non semper accuratissi- 
mas esse censuras, nee ad severissimam critices 
normam exactas ; illo j udice id plerumque opti- 
mum est, quod nunc prae manibus habet, et in 
quo nunc occupatur." 

He is therefore by no means constant to him- 
self. His defence and desertion of dramatic 
rhyme is generally known. Spence, in his re- 
marks on Pope's " Odyssey," produced what 
he thinks an unconquerable quotation from 
Dryden's preface to the " iEneid," in favour of 
translating an epic poem into blank verse ; but 
he forgets that when his author attempted the 
" Iliad," some years afterward, he departed 
from his own decision, and translated into 
rhyme. 

When he has any objection to obviate, or any 
license to defend, he is not very scrupulous 
about what he asserts, nor very cautious, if the 
present purpose be served, not to entangle him- 
self in his own sophistries. But, when all arts 
are exhausted, like other hunted animals, he 
sometimes stands at bay ; when he cannot dis- 
own the grossness of one of his plays, he declares 
that he knows not any law that prescribes mo- 
rality to a comic poet. 

His remarks on ancient or modern writers 
are not always to be trusted. His parallel of 
the versification of Ovid with that of Claudian 
has been very justly censured by Sewel.* His 
comparison of the first line of Virgil with the 
first of Statius is not happier. Virgil, he says, 
is soft and gentle, and would have thought 
Statius mad, if he had heard him thundering 
out 

Quas superimposito moles gemiaata colosso. 

Statius perhaps heats himself, as he proceeds, 
to exaggeration somewhat hyperbolical ; but un- 
doubtedly Virgil would have been too hasty, if 
he had condemned him to straw for one sound- 
ing line. Dryden wanted an instance, and the 
first that occurred was impressed into the ser- 
vice. 

What be wishes to say, he says at hazard ; he 
cited Gorbuduc, which he had never seen ; gives 
a false account of Chapman's versification ; and 
discovers, in the preface to his " Fables," that 
he translated the first book of the " Iliad" with- 
out knowing what was in the second. 

• Preface to Ovid's " Metamorphoses." — J)r. J. 



It will be difficult to prove that Dryden ever 
made any great advances in literature. As, 
having distinguished himself at Westminster 
under the tution of Busby, who advanced his 
scholars to a height of knowledge very rarely 
attained in grammar-schools, he resided after, 
wards at Cambridge ; it is not to be supposed, 
that his skill in the ancient languages was defi- 
cient, compared with that of common students ; 
but his scholastic acquisitions seem not propor- 
tionate to his opportunities and abilities. He 
could not, like Milton or Cowley, have made 
his name illustrious merely by. his learning. He 
mentions but a few books, and those such as lie 
in the beaten track of regular study ; from 
which, if ever he departs, he is in danger of 
losing himself in unknown regions. 

In his dialogue on the drama, he pronounces 
with great confidence that the Latin tragedy of 
" Medea" is not Ovid's, because it is not suffi- 
ciently interesting and pathetic. He might 
have determined the question upon surer evi- 
dence ; for it is quoted by Quintilian as the 
work of Seneca ; and the only line which re- 
mains in Ovid's play, for one line is left us, is 
not there to be found. There was therefore no 
need of the gravity of conjecture, or the discus- 
sion of plot or sentiment, to find what was al- 
ready known upon higher authority than such 
discussions can ever reach. 

His literature, though not always free from 
ostentation, will be commonly found either ob- 
vious, and made his own by the art of dressing 
it . or superficial, which by what he gives, shows 
what he wanted : or erroneous, hastily col- 
lected, and negligently scattered. 

Yet it cannot be said that his genius is ever 
unprovided of matter, or that his fancy lan- 
guishes in penury of ideas. His works abound 
with knowledge, and sparkle with illustrations. 
There is scarcely any science or faculty that 
does not supply him with occasional images and 
lucky similitudes ; every page discovers a mind 
very widely acquainted both with art and na- 
ture, and in full possession of great stores of in- 
tellectual wealth. Of him that knows much it 
is natural to suppose that he has read with dili- 
gence : yet I rather believe that the knowledge 
of Dryden was gleaned from accidental intelli- 
gence and various conversations, by a quick ap- 
prehension, a judicious selection, and a happy 
memory, a keen appetite of knowledge, and a 
powerful digestion; by vigilance that permitted 
nothing to pass without notice, and a habit of 
reflection that suffered nothing useful to be lost. 
A mind like Dryden's, always curious, always 
active, to which every understanding was proud 
to be associated, and of which every one solicited 
the regard, by an ambitious display of himself, 
had a more pleasant, perhaps a nearer way to 
knowledge than by the silent progress of solitary 
leading. 1 do not suppose that he despised 



DRYDEN. 



116 



books, or intentionally neglected them ; but that 
he was carried out, by the impetuosity of his 
genius, to more vivid and speedy instructors ; 
and that his studies were rather desultory and 
fortuitous than constant and systematical. 

It must be confessed that he scarcely ever ap- 
pears to want book-learning but when he men- 
tions books ; and to him may be transferred the 
praise which he gives his master Charles : 

His conversation, wit, and parts, 
His knowledge in the noblest useful arts 

Were such, dead authors could not give, 

But habitudes of those that live : 
Who, lighting him, did greater lights receive ; 

He drain 'd from all, and all they knew, 
His apprehensions quick, his judgment true ; 

That the most learn'd with shame confess, 
Hi3 knowledge more, his reading only less. 

Of all this, however, if the proof be demanded, 
I will not undertake to give it ; the atoms of 
probability, of which my opinion has been 
formed, lie scattered over all his Avorks : and by 
him who thinks the question worth his notice, 
his works must be perused with very close at- 
tention. 

Criticism, either didactic or defensive, occu- 
pies almost all his prose, except those pages 
which he has devoted to his patrons ; but none 
of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They 
have not the formality of a settled style, in 
which the first half of the sentence betrays the 
other. The pauses are never balanced, nor the 
periods modelled ; every word seems to drop by 
chance, though it falls into its proper place. 
Nothing is cold or languid ; the whole is airy, 
animated, and vigorous ; what is little, is gay ; 
what is great, is splendid. He may be thought 
to mention himself too frequently ; but, while 
he forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot 
refuse him to stand high in his own. Every 
thing is excused by the play of images, and the 
sprightliness of expression. Though all is easy, 
nothing is feeble : though all seems careless, 
there is nothing harsh; and though since his 
earlier works more than a century has passed, 
they have nothing yet uncouth or obsolete. 

He who writes much will not easily escape a 
manner — such a recurrence of particular modes 
as may be easily noted. Dryden is always 
another and the same ; he does not exhibit a se- 
cond time the same elegances in the same form, 
nor appears to have any art other than that of 
expressing with clearness what he thinks with 
vigour, His style could not easily be imitated, 
either seriously or ludicrously ; for, being al- 
ways equable and always varied, it has no 
prominent or discriminative characters. The 
beauty who is totally free from disproportion of 
parts and features, cannot be ridiculed by an 
overcharged resemblance. 



From bis prose, however, Dryden derives 
only his accidental and secondary praise ; the 
veneration with which his name is pronounced 
by every cultivator of English literature, is paid 
to him as he refined the language, improved the 
sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English 
poetry. 

After about half a century of forced thoughts, 
and rugged metre, some advances towards na- 
ture and harmony had been already made by 
Waller and Denham ; they had shown that long 
discourses in rhyme grew more pleasing when 
they were broken into couplets, and that verse 
consisted not only in the number but the ar- 
rangement of syllables. 

But though they did much, who can deny 
that they left much to do ? Their works were 
not many, nor were their minds of very ample 
comprehension. More examples of more modes 
of composition were necessary for the establish- 
ment of regularity, and the introduction of pro- 
priety in word and thought. 

Every language of a learned nation necessarily 
divides itself into diction, scholastic and popu- 
lai*, grave and familiar, elegant and gross ; and 
from a nice distinction of these different parts 
arises a great part of the beauty of style. But, 
if we except a few minds, the favourites of na- 
ture, to whom their own original rectitude was 
in the place of rules, this delicacy of selection 
was little known to our authors j our speech lay 
before them in a heap of confusion ; and every 
man took for every purpose what chance might 
offer him. 

There was therefore before the time of Dryden 
no poetical diction, no system of words at once 
refined from the grossness of domestic use, and 
free from the harshness of terms appropriated 
to particular arts. Words too familiar, or too 
remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From 
those sounds which we hear on small or on 
coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong 
impressions, or delightful images ; and words 
to which we are nearly strangers, whenever 
they occur, draw that attention on themselves 
which they should transmit to things. 

Those happy combinations of words which 
distinguished poetry from prose had been rarely 
attempted : we had few elegances or flowers of 
speech ; the roses had not yet been plucked from 
the bramble, or different colours had not been 
joined to enliven one another. 

It may be doubted whether Waller and Den- 
ham could have over-borne the prejudices which 
had long prevailed, and which even then were 
sheltered by the protection of Cowley. The 
new versification, as it was called, may be con- 
sidered as owing its establishment to Dryden ; 
from whose time it is apparent that English 
poetry has had no tendency to relapse to its 
former savageness. 

The affluence and comprehension of our Ian- 



1 



116' 



DRYDEN. 



guage is very illustriously displayed in our 
poetical translations of ancient writers ; a work 
which the French seem to relinquish in despair, 
and which we were long unable to perform with 
dexterity. Ben Jonson thought it necessary 
to copy Horace almost word by word ; Feltham, 
his contemporary and adversary, considers it as 
indispensably requisite in a translation to give 
line for line. It is said that Sandys, whom 
Dryden calls the best versifier of the last age, 
has struggled hard to comprise every book of 
the English " Metamorphoses" in the same 
number of verses with the original. Holiday 
had nothing in view but to show that he un- 
derstood his author, with so little regard to the 
grandeur of his diction, or the volubility of his 
numbers, that his metres can hardly be called 
verses ; they cannot be read without reluctance, 
nor will the labour always be rewarded by un- 
derstanding them. Cowley saw that such co- 
piers were a servile race : he asserted his liberty, 
and spread his wings so boldly that he left his 
authors. It was reserved for Dryden to fix the 
limits of poetical liberty, and give us just rules 
and examples of translation. 

When languages are formed upon different 
principles, it is impossible that the same modes 
of expression should always be elegant in both. 
While they run on together, the closest transla- 
tion may be considered as the best ; but when 
they divaricate, each must take its natural 
course. W T here correspondence cannot be ob- 
tained, it is necessary to be content with some- 
thing equivalent. " Translation, therefore," 
says Dryden, " is not so loose as paraphrase, 
nor so close as metaphrase." 

All polished languages have different styles ; 
the concise, the diffuse, the lofty, and the hum- 
ble. In the proper choice of style consists the 
resemblance which Dryden principally exacts 
from the translator. He is to exhibit his au- 
thor's thoughts in such a dress of diction as the 
author would have given them, had his lan- 
guage been English : rugged magnificence is 
not to be softened; hyperbolical ostentation is 
not to be repressed ; nor sententious affectation 
to have its point blunted. A translator is to be 
like his author ; it is not his business to excel him. 
The reasonableness of these rules seems suffi- 
cient for the vindication; and the effects pro- 
duced by observing them were so happy, that I 
know not whether they were ever opposed but 
by Sir Edward Sherburne, a man whose learn- 
ing was greater than his powers of poetry, and 
who, being better qualified to give the meaning 
than the spirit of Seneca, has introduced his 
version of three tragedies by a defence of close 
translation. The authority of Horace which 
the new translators cited in defence of their 
practice, he has, by a judicious explanation, 
taken fairly from them; but reason wants not 
Horace to support i* 



It seldom happens that all the necessary causes 
concur to any great effect : will is wanting to 
power, or power to will, or both are impeded 
by external obstructions. The exigencies in 
which Dryden was condemned to pass his lifa 
are reasonably supposed to have blasted his ge- 
nius, to have driven out his works in a state or 
immaturity, and to have intercepted the full- 
blown elegance which longer growth would have 
supplied. 

Poverty, like other rigid powers, is sometimes 
too hastily accused. If the excellence of Dry- 
den's works was lessened by his indigence, their 
number was increased : and I know not how 
it will be proved, that if he had written less he 
would have written better; or that indeed he 
would have undergone the toil of an author, if 
he had not been solicited by something more 
pressing than the love of praise. 

But, as is said by his " Sebastian," 

What had been, is unknown; what is, appears. 

We know that Dryden's several productions 
were so many successive expedients for his sup- 
port ; his plays were therefore often borrowed ; 
and his poems were almost all occasional. 

In an occasional performance no height of 
excellence can be expected from any mind, how- 
ever fertile in itself, and however stored with 
acquisitions. He whose work is general and 
arbitrary has the choice of his matter, and 
takes that which his inclination and his studies 
have best qualified him to display and decorate. 
He is at liberty to delay his publication till 
he has satisfied his friends and himself, till 
he has reformed his first thoughts by subsequent 
examination, and polished away those faults 
which the precipitance of ardent composition 
is likely to leave behind it. Virgil is related 
to have poured out a great number of lines 
in the morning, and to have passed the day ip 
reducing them to fewer. 

The occasional poet is circumscribed by the 
narrowness of his subject. Whatever can hap- 
pen to man has happened so often that little 
remains for fancy or invention. We have been 
all born ; we have most of us been married ; 
and so many have died before us, that our deaths 
can supply but few materials for a poet. In 
the fate of princes the public has an interest ; 
and what happens to them, of good or evil, the 
poets have always considered a business for the 
Muse. But after so many inauguratory gratu- 
lations, nuptial hymns, and funeral dirges, he 
must be highly favoured by nature, or by for- 
tune, who says any thing not said before. Even 
war and conquest, however splendid, suggest 
no new images ; the triumphant chariot of a 
victorious monarch can be decked only witli 
those ornaments that have graced his prede- 
cessors . 



D R Y D E N. 



117 



Not only matter but time is wanting. The 
poem must not be delayed till the occasion is 
forgotten. The lucky moments of animated 
imagination cannot be attended ; elegances and 
illustrations cannot be multiplied by gradual 
accumulation ; the composition must be des- 
patched, while conversation is yet busy, and 
admiration fresh ; and haste is to be made, lest 
some other event should lay hold upon man- 
kind. 

Occasional compositions may however secure 
to a writer the praise both of learning and fa- 
cility ; for they cannot be the effect of long study, 
and must be furnished immediately from the 
treasures of the mind. 

The death of Cromwell was the first public 
event which called forth Dsyden's poetical 
powers. His heroic stanzas have beauties and 
defects ; the thoughts are vigorous, and, though 
not always proper, show a mind replete with 
ideas ; the numbers are smooth ; and the dic- 
tion, if not altogether correct, is elegant and 
easy. 

Davenant was perhaps at this time his fav- 
ourite author, though " Gondibert" never ap- 
pears to have been popular ; and from Davenant 
he learned to please his ear with the stanza of 
four lines alternately rhymed. 

Dryden very early formed his versification ; 
there are in this early production no traces of 
Donne's or Jonson's ruggedness ; but he did not 
so soon free his mind from the ambition of 
forced conceits. In his verses on the Restora- 
tion, he says of the King's exile, 

He, toss'd by fate — 
Could taste no sweets of youth's desired age, 
But found his life too true a pilgrimage. 

And afterwards, to show how virtue and wis- 
dom are increased by adversity, he makes this 
remark : » 

Well might the ancient poets then confer, 
On Night the honour'd name of counsellor, 
Since struck with rays of prosperous fortune 

blind. 
We light alone in dark afflictions find. 

His praise of Monk's dexterity comprises 
such a cluster of thoughts unallied to one ano- 
ther, as will not elsewhere be easily found : 

'Twas Monk, whom Providence design'd to 
loose 
Those real bonds false freedom did impose. 
The blessed saints that watch'd this turning scene i 
Did from their stars with joyf id wonder lean, | 

To see small clues draw vastest weights along, 
Not in their bulk, but in their order strong. 
Thus pencils can by one slight touch restore 
Smiles to that changed face that wept before. 
With ease such fond chimeras we pursue, 
As fancy frames, for fancy to subdue : 
But, when ourselves to action we betake, 
It shwas the mint like gold that chemists make. 



How hard was then his task, at once to be 
What in the body natural we see! 
Man's Architect di^tincly did ordain 
The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain, 
Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense 
The springs of motion from the seat of sense : 
'Twas not the hasty product of a day, 
But the well ripened fruit of wise delay. 
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook, 
Would let them play awhile upon the he^k. 
Our healthful food the stomach labours thus, 
At first embracing what it straight doth crush. 
Wise leaches will not vain receipts obtrude, 
While growing pains pronounce the humours 

crude ; 
Deaf to complaints they wait upon the ill, 
Till some safe crisis authorize their skill. 

He had not yet learned, indeed he never 
learned well, to forbear the improper use of my- 
thology. After having rewarded the heathen 
deities for their care, 

With Alga who the sacred altar strows ? 
To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes ; 
A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain ; 
A ram to you, ye Tempests of the Main. 

He tells us, in the language of religion, 

Prayer storm'd the skies, and ravish'd Charles 

from thence, 
As heav'n itself is took by violence. 

And afterwards mentions one of the most aw- 
ful passages of Sacred History. 

Other conceits there are, too curious to be 
quite omitted ; as, 

For, by example most we sinn'd before, 

And, glass-like, clearness mix'd with frailty bore. 

How far he was yet from thinking it neces- 
sary to found his sentiments on nature, appears 
from the extravagance of his fictions and hyper- 
boles : 

The winds, that Eever moderation knew, 
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew ; 
Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge 

Their straiten'd lungs. 

It is no longer motion cheats your view ; 
As you meet it, the land approacheth you ; 
The land returns, and in the white it wears 
The marks of penitence and sorrow bears. 

I know not whether this fancy, however little 
be its value, was not borrowed. A French 
poet read to Malberbe some verses, in which he 
represents France as moving out of its place to 
receive the King. " Though this," said Mal- 
herbe, " was in my time, I do not remember 
it." 

His poem on the " Coronation" has a more 
even tenor of thought. Some lines deserve to 
be quoted: 

You have already quench'd sedition's brand ; 
And zeal, that burnt it, only warms the laud ; 

Q 



118 



D R Y D E N. 



The jealous sects that durst not trust their cause, 
So far from their own will as to the laws, 
Him for their umpire and their synod take, 
And their appeal alone to Csesar make. 

Here may be found one particle of that old 
versification, of which, I believe, in all his 
works, there is not another ; 

Nor is it duty, or our hope alone, 
Creates that joy, but full fruition. 

In the verses to the Lord Chancellor Claren- 
don, two years afterwards, is a conceit so hope- 
less at the first view, that few would have at- 
tempted it ; and so successfuly laboured, that 
though at last it gives the reader more perplexity 
than pleasure, and seems hardly worth the study 
that it costs, yet it must be valued as a proof of 
a mind at once subtle and comprehensive : 

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, 
Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky : 
So in this hemisphere our utmost view 
Is only bounded by our king and you : 
Our sight is limited where you are join'd, 
And beyond that no farther heaven can find. 
So well your virtues do with his agree, 
That though your orbs of different greatness be, 
Yet both are for each other's use disposed, 
His to inclose, and yours to be inclosed. 
Nor could another in your room have been, 
Except an emptiness had come between. 

The comparison of the Chancellor of the In- 
dies leaves all resemblance too far behind it : 

And as the Indies were not found before 
Those rich perfumes which from the happy shore 
The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd, 
Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd ; 
So by your counsels we are brought to view 
A new and undiscorer'd world in you. 

There is another comparison, for there is little 
else in the poem, of which, though perhaps it 
cannot be explained into plain prosaic mean- 
ing, the mind perceives enough to be delighted, 
and readily forgives its obscurity for its magni- 
ficence : 

How strangely active are the arts of peace, 
Whose restless motions less than wars do cease I 
Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise ; 
And war more force, but not more pains employs. 
Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, 
That, like the earth's, it leaves our sense behind : 
While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere, 
That rapid motion does but rest appear. 
For as in nature's swiftness, with the throng 
Of flying orbs while ours is borne along, 
All seems at rest to the deluded eye, 
Mov'd by the soul of the same harmony : 
So, carried on by your unwearied care, 
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share. 

To this succeed four lines, which perhaps af- 
ford Dryden's first attempt at those penetrating 
r-emarks on human nature, for which he seems 
to have been peculiarly formed : 



Let envy then those crimes within you see. 
From which the happy never must be free ; 
Envy, that does with misery reside, 
The joy and the revenge of ruin'd pride. 

Into this poem he seems to have collected all 
his powers; and after this he did not often 
bring upon his anvil such stubborn and unmal- 
leable thoughts ; but, as a specimen of his abili- 
ties to unite the most unsociable matter, he has 
concluded with lines, of which I think not my- 
self obliged to tell the meaning : 

Yet unimpair'd with labours, or with time, 
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb. 
Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget, 
And measure change, but share no part of it : 
And still it shall without a weight increase, 
Like this new year, whose motions never cease. 
For since the glorious course you have begun 
Is led by Charles, as that is by the Sun, 
It must both weightless and immortal prove, 
Because the centre of it is above. 

In the " Annus Mirabilis" he returned to 
the quatrain, which from that time he totally 
quitted, perhaps from experience of its incon- 
vience, for he complains of its difficulty. This 
is one of his greatest attempts. He had sub- 
jects equal to his abilities, a great naval war, 
and the fire of London. Battles have always 
been described in heroic poetry ; but a sea-fight 
and artillery had yet something of novelty. 
New arts are long in the world before poets 
describe them; for they borrow every thing 
from their predecessors, and commonly derive 
very little from nature or from life. Boileau 
was the first French writer that had ever haz- 
arded in verse the mention of modern war, or 
the effects of gunpowder. We, who are less 
afraid of novelty, had already possession of 
those dreadful images. Waller had described 
a sea-fight. Milton had not yet transferred 
the invention of fire-arms to the rebellious 
angels. 

This poem is written with great diligence, 
yet does not fully answer the expectation raised 
by such subjects and such a writer. With the 
stanza of Davenant he has sometimes his vein 
of parenthesis and incidental disquisition, and 
stops his narrative for a wise remark. 

The general fault is, that he affords more 
sentiment than description, and does not so 
much impress scenes upon the fancy, as deduce 
consequences and make comparisons. 

The initial stanzas have rather too much re- 
semblance to the first lines of Waller's poem on 
the war with Spain ; perhaps such a beginning 
is natural, and could not be avoided without 
affectation. Both Waller and Dryden might 
take their hint from the poem on the civil war 
of Rome, " Orbem jam totum," &c. 

Of the King collecting his navy, he says, 



D R Y D E N. 



119 



It aeems, as every ship their sovereign knows, 
His awful summons they so soon obey : 

So hear the scaly herds when Proteus blows, 
And so to pasture follow through the sea. 

It would not be hard to believe that Dryden 
had written the two first lines seriously, and 
that some wag had added the two latter in bur- 
lesque. Who would expect the lines that im- 
mediately follow, which are indeed perhaps in- 
decently hyperbolical, but certainly in a mode 
totally different ? 

To see this fleet upon the ocean move, 

Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies ; 

And Heaven, as if there wanted lights above, 
For tapers made two glaring comets rise. 

The description of the attempt at Bergen will 
afford a very complete specimen of the descrip- 
tions in this poem : 

And now approach'd their fleet from India, fraught 

With all the riches of the rising sun : 
And precious sand from southern climates brought, 

The fatal regions where the war begun. 

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store, 

Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coast they 
bring : 

Then first the North's cold bosom spices bore, 
And Winter brooded on the Eastern Spring. 

By the rich scent we found our perfumed prey, 
Which, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert lie : 

And round about their murd'ring cannon lay 
At once to threaten and invite the eye. 

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard, 
The English undertake th' unequal war. 

Seven ships alone, by which the port is barr'd, 
Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare. 

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those ; 

These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoj : 
And to such height their frantic passion grows, 

That what both love, both hazard to destrov ; 

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball, 
And now their odours arm'd against them fly ; 

Some preciously by shatter'd porcelain fall, 
And some by aromatic splinters die : 

And, though by tempests of the prize bereft, 
In Heaven's inclemency some ease we find ; 

Our foes we vanquish' d by our valour left, 
And only yielded to the seas and wind. 

In this manner is the sublime too often mingled 
with the ridiculous. The Dutch seek a shelter 
for a wealthy fleet : this surely needed no illus- 
tration ; yet they must fly, not like all the rest of 
mankind on the same occasion, but " like hunt- 
ed castors;" and they might with strict pro- 
priety be hunted ; for we winded them by our 
noses — their perfumes betrayed them. The 
husband and the lover, though of more dignity 
than the castor, are images too domestic to 



mingle properly with the horrors of war. Tha 
two quatrains that follow are worthy of the 
Author. 

The account of the different sensations with 
which the two fleets retired, when the night 
parted them, is one of the fairest flowers of 
English poetry ; 

The night comes on, we eager to pursue 
The combat still, and they ashamed to leave ; 

Till the last sn-eaks of dying day withdrew, 
And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive. 

In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy, 
And loud applause of their great leader's fame ; 

In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy, 
And, slumbering, smile at the imagin'd flame. 

Not so the Holland fleet, who tired and done, 
Stretch 'd on their decks, like weary oxen lie ; 

Faint sweats all down their mighty members run, 
(Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.) 

In dreams they fearful precipices tread, 

Or, shipwrecli'd, labour to some distant shore : 

Or, in dark churches, walk among the dead ; 

They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more. 

It is a general rule in poetry, that all appro- 
priated terms of art should be sunk in general 
expressions, because poetry is to speak a uni- 
versal language. This rule is still stronger with 
regard to arts not liberal, or confined to few ; 
and therefore far removed from common know- 
ledge; and of this kind, certainly, is technical 
navigation. Yet Dryden was of opinion, that a 
sea-fight ought to be described in the nautical 
language; "and certainly," says he, "as those, 
who in a logical disputation keep to general 
terms, would hide a fallacy, so those who do it 
in poetical description would veil their ignor- 
ance." 

Let us then appeal to experience : for by ex- 
perience at last we learn as well what will 
please as what will profit. In the battle, his 
terms seem to have been blown away ; but he 
deals them liberally in the dock : 

So here some pick out bullets from the side, 
Some drive old okum through each seam and rift: 

Their left hand does the calking-iron guide, 
The rattling mallet with the right they lift. 

With boiling pitch another near at nana 
(From friendly Sweden brought) the seams in- 
stops ; 

Which, well laid o'er, the salt-sea waves withstand, 
And shake them from the rising beak in drops. 

Some tne galPd ropes with dauby marling bind, 
Or sear-cloth masts with strong tarpawling coats: 

To try new shrouds one mounts into the wind, 
And one below their ease or stifthess notes. 

I suppose there is not one term which every 
reader does not wish away. 

His digression to the original and progress oi 



120 



DRYDE N. 



navigation, with his prospect of the advance- j 
ment which it shall receive from the Royal So- ! 
©iety, then newly instituted, may be considered 
as an example seldom equalled of seasonable ex- j 
cursion and artful return. 

One line, however, leaves me discontented ; 
he says, that, by the help of the philosophers, 

Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce, 

By which remotest regions are allied. — 

J 
Which he is constrained to explain in a note 
" by a more exact measure of longitude." It j 
had better become Dryden's learning and genius 
to have laboured science into poetry, and have 
shown, by explaining longitude, that verse did 
not refuse the ideas of philosophy. 

His description of the fire is painted by reso- 
lute meditation, out of a mind better formed to ; 
reason than to feel. The conflagration of a J 
city, with all its tumults of concomitant dis- j 
tress, is one of the most dreadful spectacles 
which this world can offer to human eyes ; yet j 
it seems to raise little emotion in the breast of 
the poet ; he watches the flame coolly from 
street to street, with now a reflection, and now 
a simile, till at last he meets the King, for 
whom he makes a speech, rather tedious in a 
time so busy ; and then follows again the pro- 
gress of the fire. 

There are, however, in this part some pas- 
sages that deserve attention ; as in the begin- 
ning; 

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain, 
And luxury, more late, asleep were laid! 

All was the Night's, and in her silent reign 
No sound the rest of Nature did invade 

In this deep quiet 

The expression " All was the Night's," is 
taken from Seneca, who remarks on Virgil's 
line, 

Omnia noctis erant, placida composta quiete, 

that he might have concluded better, 

Omnia noctis erant. 

The following quatrain is vigorous and ani- 
mated : 

The ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend 

With bold fanatic spectres to rejoice ; 
About the fire into a dance they bend, 

And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice. 

His prediction of the improvements which 
shall be made in the new city is elegant and 
poetical, and with an event which poets can- 
not always boast has been happily verified. 
The poem concludes with a simile that might 
have better been omitted. 

Dryden, when he wrote this poem, seems not 
yet fully to have formed his versification, or 
settled his system of propriety. 



From this time he addicted himself almost 
wholly to the stage, " to which," says he, " my 
genius never much inclined me," merely as the 
most profitable market for poetry. By writing 
tragedies in rhyme, he continued to improve his 
diction and his numbers. According to the 
opinion of Harte, who had studied his works 
with great attention, he settled his principles of 
versification in 1676, when he produced the play 
of " Aureng Zebe;" and, according to his own 
account of the short time in which he -wrote 
" Tyrannic Love," and " The State of Inno- 
cence," he soon obtained the full effect of dili- 
gence, and added facility to exactness. 

Rhyme has been so long banished from the 
theatre, that we know not its effects upon the 
passions of an audience : but it has this conve- 
nience, that sentences stand more independent 
on each other, and striking passages are there- 
fore easily selected and retained. Thus the des- 
cription of night in " The Indian Emperor," 
and the rise and fall of empire in " The Con- 
quest of Granada," are more frequently re- 
peated than any lines in " All for Love," or 
" Don Sebastian." 

To search his plays for vigorous sallies and 
sententious elegances, or to fix the dates of any 
little pieces which he wrote by chance, or by 
solicitation, were labour too tedious and mi- 
nute. 

His dramatic labours did not so wholly ab- 
sorb his thoughts, but that he promulgated the 
laws of translation in a preface to the English 
Epistles of Ovid; one of which he translated 
himself, and another in conjunction with the 
Earl of Mulgrave. 

" Absalom and Achitophel" is a work so 
well known, that a particular criticism is su- 
perfluous. If it be considered as a poem politi- 
cal and controversial, it will be found to com- 
prise all the excellences of which the subject is 
susceptible ; acrimony of censure, elegance of 
praise, artful delineation of characters, variety 
and vigour of sentiment, happy turns of lan- 
guage, and pleasing harmony of numbers ; and 
all these raised to such a height as can scarcely 
be found in any other English composition. 

It is not, however, without faults ; some lines 
are inelegant or improper, and too many are 
irreligiously licentious. The original structure 
of the poem was defective ; allegories drawn to 
great length will always break ; Charles could 
not run continually parallel with David. 

The subject had likewise another inconve- 
nience ; it admitted little imagery or description ; 
and a long poem of mere sentiments easily be- 
comes tedious ; though all the parts are forcible ; 
and every line kindles new rapture, the reader, 
if not relieved by the interposition of something 
that soothes the fancy, grows weary of admira- 
tion, and defers the rest. 



D R Y D E N. 



121 



As an approach to the historical truth was ne- 
cessary, the action and catastrophe were not in 
the Poet's power; there is therefore an un- 
pleasing disproportion between the beginning 
and the end. We are alarmed by a faction | 
formed of many sects, various in their princi- j 
pies, but agreeing in their purpose of mischief ; 
formidable for their numbers, and strong by 
their supports; while the King's friends are 
few and weak. The chiefs on either part are 
set forth to view; but, when expectation is at 
the height, the King makes a speech, and 

Henceforth a series of new times began. 

Who can forbear to think of an enchanted 
castle, with a wide moat and lofty battlements, 
walls of marble and gates of brass, which van- 
ishes at once into air, when the destined knight 
blows his horn before it ? 

In the second part, written by Tate, there is 
a long insertion, which, for its poignancy of sa- 
tire, exceeds any part of the former. Personal 
resentment, though no laudable motive to satire, 
can add great force to general principles. Self- 
love is a busy prompter. 

" The Medal," written upon the same prin- 
ciples with " Absalom and Achitophel," but 
upon a narrower plan, gives less pleasure, 
though it discovers equal abilities in the writer. 
The superstructure cannot extend beyond the 
foundation ; a single character or incident can- 
not furnish as many ideas as a series of events, 
or multiplicity of agents. This poem, there- 
fore, since time has left it to itself, is not much 
read, nor perhaps generally understood ; yet it 
abounds with touches both of humorous and se- 
rious satire. The picture of a man whose pro- 
pensions to mischief are such that his best ac- 
tions are but inability of wickedness, is very 
skilfully delineated and strongly coloured : 



pre-x 

' 5 



Power was bis aim ; but, thrown from that pre 

tence, 
The wretch tum'd loyal in his own defence 
And malice reconcil'd him to his prince. 
Him, in the anguish of his soul, he served ; 
Rewarded faster still than he deserved : 
Behold Mm now exalted into trust ; 
His counsels oft convenient, seldom just ; 
E'en in the most sincere advice he gave, 
He had a grudging still to be a knave. 
The frauds, he learn'd in his fanatic years, 
Made him uneasy in his lawful gears, 
At least as little honest as he could, 
And, like white witches, mischievously good. 
To this first bias, longingly, he leans : 
And rather would be great by wicked means. 

The " Thx*enodia," which, by a term I am 
afraid neither authorized nor analogical, he calls 
" Augustalis," is not among his happiest pro- 
ductions. Its first and obvious defect is the ir- 
regularity of its metre, to which the ears of that 
age, however, were accustomed. What is 



worse, it has neither tenderness nor dignity ; 
it is neither magnificent nor pathetic. He 
seems to look round him for images which he 
cannot find, and "what he has he distorts by en- 
deavouring to enlarge them. " He is," he says, 
" petrified with grief;" but the marble some- 
times relents, and trickles in a joke : 

The sons of art all med'cinea tried, 

And every noble remedy applied : 
With emulation each essay 'd 
His utmost skill : nay, more, they pray'd : 

Was never losing srame with better conduct play'd. 

He had been a little inclined to merriment 
before, upon the prayers of a nation for their 
dying sovereign : nor was he serious enough to 
keep heathen fables out of his religion : 

With him the innumerable crowd of armed prayers 
Knock'd at the gates of heaven, and knock'd 
aloud 
The first well-meaning rude petitioners 

All for his life assail'd the throne, 
All would have bribed the skies by offering up their 
own 

So great a throng not Heaven itself could bar 
'Twas almost borne- by force as in the giants' war. 
The prayers, at least, for his reprieve, were heard ; 
His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferred. 

There is throughout the composition a desire 
of splendour without wealth. In the conclu- 
sion he seems too much pleased with the pros- 
pect of the new reign to have lamented his old 
master with much sincerity. 

He did not miscaiTy in this attempt for want 
of skill either in lyric or elegiac poetry. His 
poem on the death of Mrs. Killegrew is un- 
doubtedly the noblest ode that our language 
ever has produced. The first part flows with 
a torrent of enthusiasm. Fervet immensusque 
ruit. All the stanzas indeed are not equal. 
An imperial crown cannot be one continued 
diamond : the gems must be held together by 
some less valuable matter. 

In his first " Ode for Cecilia's Day," which 
is lost in the splendour of the second, there are 
passages which would have dignified any other 
poet. The first stanza is vigorous and elegant, 
though the word diajmson is too technical, and 
the rhymes are too remote from one another. 

From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 

This universal frame began ; 
When Nature underneath a heap of jarring atoma 
lay ; 

And could not heave her head, 
The tuneful voice was heard from high, 

Arise, ye more than dead. 
Then cold and hot, and moist and dry, 
In order to their stations leap, 

And music's power obey. 
From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 

This universal frame began : 

From harmony to harmony 



122 



D R Y D E N. 



Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
The diapason closing full in man. 

The conclusion is likewise striking ; but it in- 
cludes an image so awful in itself, that it can 
owe little to poetry : and I could wish the an- 
tithesis of music untuning hadfound some other 
place. 

As from the power of sacred lays 

The spheres began to move, 
And sung the great Creator's praise 

To all the bless'd above : 

So, when the last and dreadful hour 
This crumbling pageant shall devour, 
The trumpet shall be heard on high, 
The dead shall live, the living die, 
And music shall untune the sky. 

Of his skill in elegy he has given a specimen 
in his Eleonora, of which the following lines 
discover their Author: 

Though all these rare endowments of the mind 
Were in a narrow space of life confined, 
The figure was with full perfection crown'd, 
Though not so large an orb, as truly round : 
As when in glory, throtigh the public place, 
The spoils of conquer'd nations were to pass, 
And but one day for triumph was allow'd, 
The consul was constrain'd his pomp to crowd ; 
And so the swift procession hurry'd on, 
That all, though not distinctly, might be shown : 
So, in the straiten'd bounds of life confined 
She gave but glimpses of her glorious mind ; 
And multitudes of virtues pass'd along ; 
Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng, 
Ambitious to be seen, and then make room 
For greater multitudes that were to come. 
Yet unemployed no minute slipp'd away ; 
Moments were precious in so short a stay. 
The haste of Heaven to have her was so great, 
That some were single acts, though each complete ; 
And every act stood ready to repeat. 

This piece, however, is not without its faults; 
there is so much likeness in the initial compari- 
son, that there is no illustration. As a king 
would be lamented, Eleonora was lamented : 

As, when some great and gracious monarch dies, 

Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs, rise 

Among the sad attendants ; then the sound 

Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around, 

Through town and country, till the dreadful blast 

Is blown to distant colonies at last, 

Who then, perhaps, were offering vows in vain 

For his long life, and for his happy reign : 

So slowly, by degrees, unwilling Fame 

Did matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim, 

Till public as the loss the news became. 

This is little better than to say in praise of a 
shrub, that it is as green as a tree ; or of a j 
hrook, that it waters a garden, as a river waters 
a country. 

Dryden confesses that he did not know the 



lady, whom he celebrates : the praise being 
therefore inevitably general, fixes no impression 
upon the reader, nor excites any tendency to 
love, nor much desire of imitation. Knowledge 
of the subject is to the poet what durable ma- 
terials are to the architect. 

The " Religio Laici," which borrows its 
title from the " Religio Medici" of Browne, is 
almost the only work of Dryden which can be 
considered as a voluntary effusion; in this, 
therefore, it might be hoped, that the full efful- 
gence of his genius would be found. But un- 
happily the subject is rather argumentative 
than poetical ; he intended only a specimen of 
metrical disputation : 

And this unpolish'd rugged verse I chose, 
As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose • 

This, however, is a composition of great excel- 
lence in its kind, in which the familiar is very 
properly diversified with the solemn, and the 
grave with the humorous ; in which metre has 
neither weakened the force, nor clouded the per- 
spicuity of argument ; nor will it be easy to find 
another example equally happy of this middle 
kind of writing, which, though prosaic in some 
parts, rises to high poetry in others, and nei- 
ther towers to the skies, nor creeps along the 
ground. 

Of the same kind, or not far distant from it, 
is " The Hind and Panther," the longest of 
all Dryden's original poems; an allegory in- 
tended to comprise and to decide the controversy 
been the Romanists and Protestants. The 
scheme of the work is injudicious and incom- 
modious ; for what can be more absurd than 
that one beast should counsel another to rest her 
faith upon a pope and council ? He seems well 
enough skilled in the usual topics of argument, 
endeavours to show the necessity of an infallible 
judge, and reproaches the reformers with want 
of unity : but is weak enough to ask, why, 
since we see without knowing how, we may 
not have an infallible judge without knowing 
where ? 

The Hind at one time is afraid to drink at 
the common brook, because she may be wor- 
ried ; but walking home with the Panther, 
talks by the way of the Nicene fathers, and at 
last declares herself to be of the catholic church. 

This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in 
the " City Mouse" and " Country Mouse" of 
Montague and Prior ; and in the detection and 
censure of the incongruity of the fiction chiefly 
consists the value of their performance, which, 
whatever reputation it might obtain by the help 
of temporary passions, seems, to readers almost a 
century distant, not very forcible or animated. 

Pope, whose judgment was perhaps a little 
bribed by the subject, used to mention this 
poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's 



D R Y D E N. 



123 



versification. It was indeed written when he 
had completely formed his manner, and may be 
supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his de- 
liberate and ultimate scheme of metre. 

We may therefore reasonably infer, that he 
did not approve the perpetual uniformity which 
confines the sense to couplets, since he has 
broken his lines in the initial paragraph. 

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged 

Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged : 

Without unspotted, innocent within 

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin. 

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds, 

And Scythian shafts, and many-winged wounds 

Aim'd at her heart ; was often forced to fly, 

And doom'd to death, though fated not to die. 

These lines are lofty, elegant, and musical, 
notwithstanding the interruption of the pause, 
of which the effect is rather increase of pleasure 
by variety, than offence by ruggedness. 

To the first part it was his intention, he says, 
" to give the majestic turn of heroic poesy : " 
and perhaps he might have executed his design 
not unsuccessfully, had not an opportunity of 
satire, which he cannot forbear, fallen some- 
times in his way. The character of a presby- 
terian, whose emblem is the Wolf, is not very 
heroically majestic : 

More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race 

Appear with belly gaunt and famish'd face ; 

Never was so deform'd a beast of grace. 

His ragged tail bstwixt his legs he wears, 

Close clapp'd for shame ; but his rough crest he 

rears, 
And pricks up his predestinating ears. 

His general character of the other sorts of 
beasts that never go to church, though sprightly 
and keen, has, however, not much of heroic 
poesy : 

These are the chief ; to number o'er the rest, 

And stand like Adam naming every beast, 

Were weary-work ; nor will the Muse describe 

A slimy born, and sun-begotten tribe, 

Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound, 

In fields their sullen conventicles found. 

These gross, half-animated lumps I leave ; 

Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive ; 

But, if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher 

Than matter, put in motion, may aspire : 

Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,") 

So drossy, so divisible are they, [- 

As would but serve pure bodies for allay ; J 

Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things 

As only buz to Heaven with evening wings ; 

Strike in the dark, offending but by chance : 

Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance. 

They know no being, and but hate a name ; 

To them the Hind and Panther are the same. 

One more instance, and that taken from the 
narrative part, where style was more in his 
choice, will show how steadily he kept his i-eso- 
lution of heroic dignitv. 



For when the herd, sufficed, did late repair 
To ferney heaths and to their forest lair, 
She made a mannerly excuse to stay, 
Proffering the Hind to wait her half the way ; 
That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk 
Might help her to beguile the tedious walk. 
With much good will the motion was embraced, 
To chat awhile on their adventures past : 
Nor had the grateful Hind so soon forgot 
Her friend and fellow -sufferer in the plot. 
Yet, wondering how of late she grew estranged, 
Her forehead cloudy and her count'nance changed. 
She thought this hour th' occasion would present 
To learn her secret cause of discontent, 
Which well she hoped might be with ease re- ~\ 
dress'd, f 

Considering her a well-bred civil beast, f 

And more a gentlewoman than the rest. J 

After some common talk what rumours ran, 
The lady of the spotted muff began. 

The second and third parts he professes to 
have reduced to diction more familiar and more 
suitable to dispute and conversation ; the dif- 
ference is not, however, very easily perceived : 
the first has familiar, and the two others have 
sonorous, lines. The original incongruity runs 
through the whole ; the King is now Cfesar, 
and now the Lion ; and the name Pan is given 
to the Supreme Being. 

But when this constitutional absurdity is for- 
given, the poem must be confessed to be written 
with smoothness of metre, a wide - extent of 
knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of 
images; the controversy is embellished with 
pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, 
and enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of 
the facts to which allusions are made are now 
become obscure, and perhaps there may be many 
satirical passages little understood. 

As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a 
composition which would naturally be examined 
with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was 
probably laboured with uncommon attention, 
and there are, indeed, few negligences in the 
subordinate parts. The original impropriety, 
and the subsequent unpopularity of the subject, 
added to the ridiculousness of its first elements, 
has sunk it into neglect ; but it may be usefully 
studied, as an example of poetical ratiocination, 
in which the argument suffers little from the 
metre. 

In the poem " On the Birth of the Prince of 
Wales," nothing is very remarkable but the ex- 
orbitant adulation and that insensibility of the 
precipice on which the King was then standing, 
which the Laureate apparently shared with the 
rest of the courtiers. A few months cured him 
of controversy, dismissed him from court, and 
made him again a play-wright and translator. 

Of Juvenal there had been a translation by 
Stapylton, and another by Holiday ; neither of 
them is very poetical. Stapylton is more smooth; 
and Holiday's is more esteemed for the learn- 
ing of his notes. A new version was proposed 



124 



DRYDEN. 



to the poets of that time, and undertaken by 
them in conjunction. The main design was 
conducted by Dryden, whose reputation was 
such that no man was unwilling to serve the 
Muses under him. 

The general character of this translation will 
be given, when it is said to preserve the wit, but 
to want the dignity of the original. The pecu- 
liarity of Juvenal is a mixture of gayety and 
stateliness, of pointed sentences, and declama- 
tory grandeur. His points have not been ne- 
glected ; but his grandeur none of the band 
seemed to consider as necessary to be imitated, 
except Creech, who undertook the thirteenth 
satire. It is therefore, perhaps, possible to give 
a better representation of that great satirist, 
even in those parts which Dryden himself has 
translated, some passages excepted, which will 
never be excelled. 

"With Juvenal was published Persius, tran- 
slated wholly by Dryden. This work, though, 
like all other productions of Dryden, it may 
have shining parts, seems to have been written 
merely for wages, in a uniform mediocrity, 
without any eager endeavour after excellence, 
or laborious effort of the mind. 

There wanders an opinion among the readers 
of poetry, that one of these satires is an exercise 
of the school. Dryden says, that he once tran- 
slated it at school ; but not that he preserved or 
published the juvenile performance. 

Not long afterwards he undertook perhaps 
the most arduous work of its kind, a translation 
of Virgil, for which he had shown how well he 
was qualified by his version of the Pollio, and 
two episodes, one of Nisus and Euryalus, the 
other of Mezentius and Lausus. 

In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the 
discriminative excellence of Homer is elevation 
and comprehension of thought, and that of Vir- 
gil is grace and splendour of diction. The 
beauties of Homer are therefore difficult to be 
lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained. 
The massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its 
solidity, but the blossoms of elocution easily 
drop away. The author, having the choice of 
his own images, selects those which he can best 
adorn ; the translator must, at all hazards, fol- 
low his original, and express thoughts which 
perhaps he would not have chosen. When to 
this primary difficulty is added the inconvenience 
of a language so much inferior in harmony to 
the Latin, it cannot be expected that they who 
read the " Georgics" and the " JEneid" should 
be much delighted with any version. 

All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these 
he determined to encounter. The expectation 
of his work was undoubtedly great ; the nation 
considered its honour as interested in the event. 
One gave him the different editions of his au- 
thor, another helped him in the subordinate 



parts. The arguments of the several books 
were given him by Addison. 

The hopes of the public were not disappoint- 
ed. He produced, says Pope, " the most no- 
ble and spirited translation that I know in any 
language." It certainly excelled whatever had 
appeared in English, and appears to have satis- 
fied his friends, and for the most part to have 
silenced his enemies. Milbourne, indeed, a 
clergyman, attacked it ; but his outrages seem 
to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by a 
stronger resertment than bad poetry can excite, 
and previously resolved not to be pleased. 

His criticism extends only to the Preface, 
Pastorals, and Georgics ; and, as he professes to 
give his antagonist an opportunity of reprisal, 
he has added his own version of the first and 
fourth Pastorals, and the first Georgic. The 
world has forgotten his book ; but since his at- 
tempt has given him a place in literary history, 
I will preserve a specimen of his criticism, by 
inserting his remarks on the invocation before 
the first Georgic ; and of his poetry, by annex- 
ing his own version. 

Ver. 1. 
" V7hat makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn 
The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn. 

It's unlucky, they say, to stumble at the threshold; 
tout what has a plenteous harvest to do here? 
Virgil would not pretend to prescribe rules for 
that Avhich depends not on the husbandman's 
care, but the disposition of Heaven altogether. 
Indeed, the plenteous crop depends somewhat on 
the good method of tillage; and where the land's 
ill-manured, the corn, without a miracle, can be 
but indifferent: but the harvest may be good, 
which is its properest epithet, though the hus- 
bandman's skill were never so indifferent. The 
next sentence is too literal, and when to plough had 
been Virgil's meaning, and intelligible to every 
body; and when to sow the corn is a needless 
addition. " 

Ver. 3. 
" The care of sheep, of oxen, and of iine, 
And when to geld the lambs, and shear the swine, 

would as well have fallen under the extra bourn 
qui cidtus habendo sit pecori, as Mr. D. 's deduc- 
tion of particulars." 



Ver. 5. 
" The birth and genius of the frugal 
I sing, Maecenas and I sing to thee. 



bee 



But where did experientia ever signify birth and 
genius ? or what ground was there for such a 
figure in this place ? How much more manly 
is Mr. Ogylby's version!" 

" What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs 
'Tis good to plough, and marry elms with vines ; 



DRYDEN. 



125 



What best fits cattle, what with sheep agrees, 
And several arts improving frugal bees ; 
I sing, Maecenas. 

Which four lines, though faulty enough, are 
yet much more to the purpose than Mr. D.'s 
six." 

Ver. 22. 
" From fields and mountein^ to my eong repair, 

For patrium linquens nemus, saltusque Lyccei — 
Very well explained ! " 

Ver. 23, 24. 
" Inventor Pallas, of the fattening oil. 
Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil!" 

Written as if these had been Pallas' '$ invention. 
The ploughman's toil 's impertinent." 

Ver. 25. 

" The shroud-like cypress ' 

Why shroud-like ? Is a cypress, pulled up by 
the roots, which the sculpture in the last Eclogue 
fills Silvanus's hand with, so very like a shroud? 
Or did not Mr. D. think of that kind of cypress 
us'd often for scarves and hatbands at funerals 
formerly, or for widows' veils, &c. ? if so, 'twas 
a deep, good thought." 

Ver. 26. 
« : That wear 



The royal honours and increase the year. 

What's meant by increasing the year ? Did the 
gods or goddesses add more months, or days, or 
hours, to it ? Or how can arva tueri signify to 
wear rural honours ? Is this to translate, orabuse, 
an author ? The next couplet is borrowed from 
Ogylby, I suppose, because less to the purpose 
than ordinary." 

Ver. 33. 
" The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar 
guard. 

Idle, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense 
of the precedent couplet ; so again, he interpolates 
Virgil with that and the round circle of the year 
to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew' si 
around ; a ridiculous Latinism, and an imperti- 
nent additions indeed the whole period is but 
one piece of absurdity and nonsense, as those who 
lay it with the original must find." 

Ver. 42, 43. 
" And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea. 

Was he consul or dictator there ? 

And watery virgins for thy bed shall strive. 

Both absurd interpolations." 



Ver. 4f, 4». 
" Where io the void of heaven a place is free, 
Ah, happy D n, were that place/or thee I 

But where is that void? Or, what does our 
translator mean by it ? He knows what Ovid 
says God did to prevent such a void in heaven ; 
perhaps this was then forgotten ; but Virgil 
talks more sensibly." 

Ver. 49. 
" The scorpion ready to receive thy law* 

No, he would not then have gotten out of his 
way so fast." 

Ver. 56. 
" Though Proserpine affects her silent seat. 

What made her then so angry with Ascalaphus, 
for preventing her return ? She was now mus'd 
to Patience under the determinations of Fate, 
rather than fond of her residence." 

Ver. 61, 62, 63. 
" Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares. 
Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs, 
And use thyself bo times to hear our prayers. 

Which is such a wretched perversion of Virgil's 
noble thought as Vicars would have blush'd at : 
but Mr. Ogylby makes us some amends by his 
better lines : 

** O wheresoe'er thou art, from thence incline, 
And grant assistance to my bold design ; 
Pity, with me, poor hu&bandmen's affairs, 
And now, as if translated, hear our prayers. 



This is sense, and to the purpose : 
mistaken stuff ." 



the other, poor 



Such were the strictures of Milbourne, who 
found few abettors, and of whom it may be rea- 
sonably imagined, that many who favoured his 
design were ashamed of his insolence. 

When admiration had subsided, the transla- 
tion was more coolly examined, and found, like 
all others, to be sometimes erroneous, and some- 
times Licentious. Those who could find faults, 
thought they could avoid them ; and Dr. Brady 
attempted in blank verse a translation of the 
" iEneid," which, when dragged into the world, 
did not live long enough to cry. I have never 
seen it; but that such a version there is, or 
has been, perhaps some old catalogue informed 
me. 

With not much better success, Trapp, when 
his Tragedy and his Prelections had given him 
reputation, attempted another blank version of 
the " iEneid ;'* to which, notwithstanding tho 
slight regard with which it was treated, he had 
afterwards perseverance enough to add thf 



126 



DRYDEN. 



" Eclogues" and ** Georgics." His book may 
continue in existence as long as it is the clandes- 
tine refuge of school-boys. 

Since the English ear has been accustomed to 
the mellifluence of Pope's numbers, and' the 
diction of poetry has become more splendid, 
new attempts have been made to translate Vir- 
gil ; and all his works have been attempted by 
men better qualified to contend with Dryden. 
I will not engage myself in an invidious com- 
parison, by opposing one passage to another ; a 
work of which there would be no end, and 
which might be often offensive without use. 

It is not by comparing line with line that the 
merit of great works is to be estimated, but by 
their general effects and ultimate result. It is 
easy to note a weak line, and write one more 
vigorous in its place ; to find a happiness of ex- 
pression in the original, and transplant it by 
force into the version : but what is given to the 
parts may be subducted from the whole, and 
the reader may be weary, though the critic may 
commend. Works of imagination excel by their 
allurement and delight ; by their power of at- 
tracting and detaining the attention. That 
book is good in vain which the reader throws 
away. He only is the master who keeps the 
mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are 
perused with eagerness, and in hope of new 
pleasure are perused again; and whose conclu- 
sion is perceived with no eye of sorrow, such as 
the traveller casts upon departing day. 

By his proportion of this predomination I 
will consent that Dryden should be tried ; of 
this, which, in opposition to reason, makes 
Ariosto the darling and the pride of Italy ; of 
this, which in defiance of criticism, continues 
Shakspeare the sovereign of the drama, 

His last work was his " Fables," in which 
he gave us the first example of a mode of writ- 
ing which the Italians call refaccimento, a re- 
novation of ancient writers, by modernizing 
their language. Thus the old poem of " Boi- 
ardo" has been new-dressed by Domenichi and 
Berni. The works of Chaucer, which upon 
this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed 
by Dryden, require little criticism. The tale of 
the Cock seems hardly worth revival ; and the 
story of " Palamon and Arcite," containing an 
action unsuitable to the times in which it is 
placed, can hardly be suffered to pass without 
censure of the hyperbolical commendation which 
Dryden has given it in the general Preface, and 
in a poetical Dedication, a piece where his ori- 
ginal /"ondness of remote conceits seems to have 
revived. 

Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace, 
*"' Sigismunda" may be defended by the celebrity 
of the story. " Theodore and Honoria," though 
it contains not much moral, yet afforded oppor- 
tunities of striking description. And " Cy- 
mon" was formerly a tale of such reputation, 



that at the revival of letters it was translated 
into Latin by one of the Beroalds. 

Whatever subjects employed his pen, he was 
still improving our measures, and embellishing 
our language. 

In this volume are interspersed some short 
original poems, which, with his prologues, epi- 
logues, and songs, may be comprised in Con- 
greve's remark, that even those, if he had writ- 
ten nothing else, woidd have entitled him to 
the praise of excellence in his kind. 

One composition must however be distin- 
guished. The " Ode for St. Cecilia's Day," 
perhaps the last effort of his poetry, has been 
always considered as exhibiting the highest 
flight of fancy, and the exactest nicety of art. 
This is allowed to stand without a rival. If 
indeed there is any excellence beyond it, in 
some other of Dryden' s works that excellence 
must be found. Compared with the " Ode on 
Killegrew," it may be pronounced perhaps su- 
perior on the whole, but without any single 
part equal to the first stanza of the other. 

It is said to have cost Dryden a fortnight's 
labour; but it does not want its negligences; 
some of the lines are without correspondent 
rhymes ; a defect which I never detected but 
after an acquaintance of many years, and which 
the enthusiasm of the writer might hinder him 
from perceiving. 

His last stanza has less emotion than the 
former ; but it is not less elegant in the diction. 
The conclusion is vitious ; the music of " Ti- 
motheus," which raised a mortal to the skies, had 
only a metaphorical power ; that of " Cecilia," 
which drew an angel doivn, had a real effect : 
the crown, therefore, could not reasonably be 
divided. 

In a general survey of Dryden's labours, he 
appears to have a mind very comprehensive by 
nature, and much enriched with acquired know- 
ledge. His compositions are the effects of a vi- 
gorous genius operating upon large materials. 

The power that predominated in his intellec- 
tual operations was rather strong reason than 
quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were 
presented he studied rather than felt, and pro- 
duced sentiments not such as nature enforces, 
but meditation supplies. With the simple and 
elemental passions, as they spring separate in the 
mind, he seems not much acquainted ; and sel- 
dom describes them but as they are complicated 
by the various relations of society, and confused 
in the tumults and agitations of life. 

What he says of Love may contribute to the 
explanation of his character ; 

Love various minds does variously inspire : 
It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire, 
Like that of incense on the altar laid ; 
JBut raging flames tempestuous souls invade . 
A fire which every windy passion blows, 
"With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows. 






DRYDEN. 



127 



Dryden's was not one of the gentle bosoms : 
Love, as it subsists in itself, with no tendency 
tut to the person loved, and wishing only for 
corresponding kindness ; such Love as shuts out 
all other interest, the Love of the Golden Age, 
was too soft and subtle to put his faculties in 
motion. He hardly conceived it but in its tur- 
bulent effervescence with some other desires ; 
when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obstructed 
by difficulties ; when it invigorated ambition, 
or exasperated revenge. 

He is, therefore, with all his variety of excel- 
lence, not often pathetic ; and had so little sensi- 
bility of the power of effusions purely natural, 
that he did not esteem them in others : simpli- 
city gave him no pleasure; and for the first 
part of his fife he looked on Otway with con- 
tempt, though at last, indeed very late, he con- 
fessed that in his play there was Nature, which 
is the chief beauty. 

We do not always know our own motives. 
I am not certain whether it was not rather the 
difficulty which he found in exhibiting the gen- 
uine operations of the heart, than a servile sub- 
mission to an injudicious audience, that filled 
his plays with false magnificence. It was ne- 
cessary to fix attention ; and the mind can be 
captivated only by recollection, or by curiosity ; 
by reviving natural sentiments, or impressing 
new appearances of things ; sentences were 
readier at his call than images ; he could more 
easily fill the ear with splendid novelty, than 
awaken those ideas that slumber in the heart. 

The favourite exercise of his mind was ratio- 
cination ; and, that argument might not be too 
soon at an end, he delighted to talk of liberty 
and necessity, destiny and contingence ; these 
he discusses in the language of the school with 
so much profundity, that the terms which he 
uses are not always understood. It is indeed 
learning, but learning out of place. 

When once he had engaged himself in 'dispu- 
tation thoughts flowed in on either side : he was 
now no longer at a loss ; he had always objec- 
tions and solutions at command ; " verbaque 
provisam rem" — gave him matter for his verse, 
and he finds without difficulty verse for his 
matter. 

In comedy, for which he professes himself not 
naturally qualified, the mirth which he excites 
will perhaps not be found so much to arise from 
any original humour, or peculiarity of charac- 
ter nicely distinguished and diligently pursued, 
as from incidents and circumstances, artifices 
and surprises; from jests of action rather than 
of sentiment. What he had of humorous or 
passionate, he seems to have had not from na- 
ture, but from other poets ; if not always as a 
plagiary, at least as an imitator. 

Next to argument, his delight was in wild and 
daring sallies of sentiment, in the irregular and 
eccentric violence of wit. He delighted to tread 



upon the brink of meaning, where light and 
darkness begin to mingle ; to approach the pre- 
cipice of absurdity, and hover over the abyss of 
unideal vacancy. This inclination sometimes 
produced nonsense which he knew ; as, 

Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lovei's pace, 

Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race, 

Am am el flies 
To guard thee from the demons of the air ; 
My flaming sword above them to display, 
All keen, and ground upon the edge of day. 

And sometimes it ssued in absurdities, of 
which perhaps he was not conscious : 

Then we upon our orb's last verge shall go 
And see the ocean leaning on the sky : 

From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, 
And on the lunar world securely pry. 

These lines have no meaning ; but may we 
not say, in imitation of Cowley^ on another 
book, 

'Tis so like sense, 'twill serve the turn as well ? 

This endeavour after the grand and the new 
produced many sentiments either great or bulky, 
and many images either just or splendid : 

I am as free as Nature first made man, "\ 

Ere the base laws of servitude began, v 

When wild in woods the noble savage ran. J 

— 'Tis but because the living death ne'er knew, 
They fear to prove it as a thing that's new : 
Let me th' experiment before you try, 
I'll show you first how easy 'tis to die. 

— There with a forest of their darts he strove, 

And stood like Capaneus defying Jove, 

With his broad sword the boldest beating down. 

While Fate grew pale lest he should win the town, 

And turn'd the iron leaves of his dark book 

To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook. 

— I beg no pity for this mouldering clay ; 

For if you give it burial, there it takes 

Possession of your earth : 

If burnt, and scatter'd in the air, the winds 

That strew my dust diffuse my royalty, 

And spread me o'er your clime ; for where cue a'crp 

Of mine shall light, know there Sebastian reigns. 

Of these quotations the two first may be al- 
lowed to be great, the two latter only tumid. 

Of such selection there is no end. I will 
add only a few more passages: of which the 
first, though it may not perhaps be quite clear 
in prose, is not too obscure for poetry, as th 
meaning that it has is noble :* 



* I cannot see why Johnson has thought there w 
any want of clearness in this passage even in prose 
Addison has given us almost the very same thought 
in very good rjrose : " If we look forward to Him 
(the Deity) for help, we shall never be in danger of 



128 



DRYDEN. 



No, thero is a necessity in fate, 
Why still the brave bold man is fortunate ; 
He keeps his object ever full in sight ; 
And that assurance holds him firm and right ; 
True, 'tis a narrow way that leads to bliss, -v 

But right before there is no precipice ; r 

Fear makes men look aside, and so their footing / 
miss. y 

Of the images which the two following cita- 
tions afford, the first is elegant, the second mag- 
nificent ; whether either be just, let the reader 
judge : 

What precious drops are these, 
Which silently each other's track pursue, 
Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew J 



Resign your castle 

— Enter, brave Sir : for, when you speak the word, 
The gates shall open of their own accord ; 
The genius of the place its Lord shall meet, 
And bow its towery forehead at your feet. 

These hursts of extravagance Dryden calls the 
Dalilahs of the Theatre; and owns that many 
noisy lines of " Maximin and Almanzor" call out 
for vengeance upon him ; " but I knew," says 
he, " that they were bad enough to please, even 
when I wrote them." There is surely reason 
to suspect that he pleased himsell as well as his 
audience; and that these, like the harlots of 
other men, had his love, though not his appro- 
bation. 

He had sometimes faults of a less generous 
and splendid kind. He makes, like almost all 
other poets, very frequent use of mythology, 
and sometimes connects religion and fable too 
closely without distinction. 

He descends to display his knowledge Avith 
pedantic ostentation; as when, in translating 
Virgil, he says, tack to the larboard — and veer 
starboard ; and talks in another work, of virtue 
spooning before the wind.— -His vanity now and 
then betrays his ignorance : 

They Nature's king through Nature's optics view'd ; 
Reversed, they view'd him lessen'd to their eyes. 

He had heard of reversing a telescope, and un- 
luckily reverses the object. 

He is sometimes unexpectedly mean. When 
he describes the Supreme Being as moved by 
prayer to stop the fire of London, what is his 
expression ? 

&. hollow crystal pyramid he takes," 
In firmamental water dipt,'d above, 

_ _ . __i 

falling down those precipices which our imagination j 
is apt to create. Like those who walk upon a line, ! 
if we keep our eye fixed upon one point we may j 
step forward securely; whereas an imprudent or i 
cowardly glance on either side will infallibly destroy 
us." Spec. No. 615.— J. B. 



Of this abroad extinguisher he makes 
And hoods the flames that to their quarry strove. 

When he describes the last day, and the decisive 
tribunal, he intermingles this image : 

When rattling bones together fly, 
From the four quarters of the sky. 

It was indeed never in his power to resist 
the temptation of a jest. In his " Elegy on 
Cromwell :" 

No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embraced, 
Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweigh'd ; 
His fortune turn'd the scale 

He had a vanity, unworthy of his abilities, 
to show, as may be suspected, the rank of the 
company with whom he lived, by the use of 
French words, which had then crept into con- 
versation : such as fraicheur for coolness, fougue 
for turbulence, and a few more, none of which 
the language has incorporated or retained. They 
continue only where they stood first, perpetual 
warnings to future innovators. 

These are his faults of affectation ; his faults 
of negligence are beyond recital. Such is the 
unevenness of his compositions, that ten lines 
are seldom found together without something 
of which the reader is ashamed. Dryden was 
no rigid judge of his own pages; he seldom 
struggled after supreme excellence, but snatched 
in haste what was within his reach ; and when 
he could content others, was himself contented. 
He did not keep present to his mind an idea of 
pure perfection ; nor compare his works, such 
as they were, with what they might be made. 
He knew to Avhom he should be opposed. He 
had more music than Waller, more vigour than 
Denham, and more nature than Cowley ; and 
from his contemporaries he was in no danger. 
Standing therefore in the highest place, he had 
no care to rise by contending with himself ; but, 
Avhile there was no name above his own, was 
willing to enjoy fame on the easiest terms. 

He was no lover of labour. What he thought 
sufficient, he did not stop to make better ; and 
allowed himself to leave many parts unfinished, 
in confidence that the good lines would overbal- 
ance the bad. What he had once written, he 
dismissed from his thoughts ; and I belieA T e 
there is no example to be found of any correc- 
tion or improA*ement made by him after publi- 
cation. The hastiness of his productions might 
be the effect of necessity; but his subsequent 
neglect could hardly haA r e any other cause than 
impatience of study. 

What can be said of his versification will be 
little more than a dilatation of the praise giA-en 
it by Pope : 

Waller was smooth : but Dryden taught to join ~\ 
The varying verse, the full-resounding line, > 

The long majestic march, and energy divine. ) 



DRYDEN. 



129 



Some improvements had been already made in 
English numbers; but the full force of our lan- 
guage was not yet felt ; the verse tbat was 
smooth was commonly feeble. If Cowley had 
sometimes a finished line, he had it by chance. 
Dryden knew how to choose' the flowing and 
the sonorous words; to vary the pauses, and 
adjust the accents ; to diversify the cadence, and 
yet preserve the smoothness of his metre. 

Of triplets and Alexandrines, though he did 
not introduce the use, he established it. The 
triplet has long subsisted among us. Dryden 
seems not to have traced it higher than to Chap- 
man's Homer ; but it is to be found in Phaer's 
Virgil, written in the reign of Mary ; and in 
Hall's " Satires," published five years before 
the death of Elizabeth. 

The Alexandrine was, I believe, first used by 
Spenser, for the sake of closing his stanza with 
a fuller sound. We had a longer measure of 
fourteen syllables, into which the " iEneid" 
was translated by Phaer, and other works of 
the ancients by other writers ; of which Chap- 
man's " Iliad" was, I believe, the last. 

The two first lines of Phaer's third " JEneid" 
will exemplify this measure : 

When Asia's state was overthrown and Priam's 

kingdom stout, 
All guiltless, by the power of gods above was rooted 

put. 

As these lines had their break, or ceesura, al- 
ways at the eighth syllable, it was thought, in 
time, commodious to divide them: and qua- 
trains of lines alternately, consisting of eight 
and six syllables, make the most soft and pleas- 
ing of our lyric measure : as, 

Relentless Time, destroying power, 

Which stone and brass otey ; 
Who giv'st to ev'ry flying hour 

To work some new decay. 

In the Alexandrine, when its power was 
once felt, some poems, as Drayton's " Polyal- 
bion," were wholly written; and sometimes 
the measures of twelve and fourteen syllables 
were interchanged with one another. Cowley 
was the first that inserted the Alexandrine at 
pleasure among the heroic lines of ten syllables, 
and from him Dryden professes to have adopt- 
ed it.* 

* This is an error. The Alexandrine inserted 
among heroic lines of ten syllables is found in many 
if the writers of Queen Elizabeth's reign. It will 
be sufficient to mention Hall, who has already been 
quoted for the use of the triplet: 

As though the staring world hanged on his sleeve 
Whene'er he smiles to laugh, and when he sighs to grieve. 

Hall's Sat. Book i. Sat. 7. 

Take another instance : 

For shame '. or better write or Labeo write none . 

Ibid. B. ii. Sat. I.— J. B. 



The triplet and Alexandrine are not univer- 
sally approved. Swift always censured them, 
and wrote some lines to ridicule them. In ex- 
amining their propriety, it is to be considered, 
that the essence of verse is regularity, and its 
ornament is variety. To write verse, is to dis- 
pose syllables and sounds harmonically by some, 
known and settled rule; a rule however lax 
enough to substitute similitude for identity, to 
admit change without breach of order, and to 
relieve the ear without disappointing it. Thus 
a Latin hexameter is formed from dactyls and 
spondees differently combined ; the English he- 
roic admits of acute or grave syllables variously 
disposed. The Latin never deviates into seven 
feet, or exceeds the number of seventeen sylla- 
bles; but the English Alexandrine breaks the 
lawful bounds, and surprises the reader with 
two syllables more than he expected. 

The effect of the triplet is the same ; the ear 
has been accustomed to expect a new rhyme in 
every couplet ; but is on a sudden surprised with 
three rhymes together, to which the reader could 
not accommodate his voice, did he not obtain 
notice of the change from the braces of the mar- 
gins. Surely there is something unskilful in the 
necessity of such mechanical direction. 

Considering the metrical art simply as a 
science, and consequently excluding all casualty, 
we must allow that triplets and Alexandrines, 
inserted by caprice, are interruptions of that 
constancy to which science aspires. And though 
the variety which they produce may very justly 
be desired, yet to make poetry exact, there ought 
to be some stated mode of admitting them. 

But till some such regulation can be formed, 
I wish them still to be retained in their present 
state. They are sometimes convenient to the 
poet. Fenton was of opinion, that Dryden was 
too liberal, and Pope too sparing in their use. 

The rhymes of Dryden are commonly just, 
and he valued himself for his readiness in find- 
ing them ; but he is sometimes open to objec- 
tion. 

It is the common practise of our poets to end 
the second line with a weak or grave syllable : 

Together o'er the Alps me thinks we fly, 
Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy. 

Dryden sometimes puts the weak rhyme in 
the first : 

Laugh all the powers that favour tyranny, 
And all the standing army of the sky. 

Sometimes he concludes a period or paragraph 
with the first line of a couplet, which, though 
the French seem to do it without irregularity, 
always displeases in English poetry. 

The A lexandrine, though much his favourite, 
is lot always very diligently fabricated by him. 
It invariably requires a break at the sixth syi-l 



ISO 



DRYDEN. 



lable ; a rule which the modern French poets 
never violate, but which Dryden sometimes 
neglected : 

And with paternal thunder vindicates bis throne. 

Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope, that 
" he could select from them better specimens of 
every mode of poetry than any other English 
writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever 
produced a writer that enriched his language 
with such a variety of models. To him we owe 
the improvement, perhaps the completion, of 
our metre, the refinement of our language, and 
much of the correctness of our sentiments. By 
him we were taught sapere et fari, to think na- 
turally and express forcibly. Though Davies 
has reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be 
perhaps maintained that he was the first who 
joined argument with poetry. He showed us 
the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What 
was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus, may 
be applied by an easy metaphor to English poe- 
try embellished by Dryden, lateritiam invenit, 
marmoream reliquit. He found it brick, and he 
left it marble. 

The invocation before the " Georgics" is here 
inserted from Mr. Milbourne's version, that ac- 
cording to his own proposal, his verses may be 
compared with those which he censures. 

What makes the richest tilth, beneath what signs 
To plough, and when to match your elms and vines ; 
What care with flocks, and what with herds agrees, 
And all the management of frugal bees; 
I sing, Maecenas I Ye immensely clear, 
Vast orbs of light, which guide the rolling year ! 
JBacchus, and mother Ceres, if by you 
We fatt'ning corn for hungry man pursue ; 
If, taught by you, we first the cluster prest, 
And thin cold streams with sprightly juice refresht; 
Ye fawns, the present numens of the field, 
Wood-nymphs and fawns, your kind assistance yield ; 
Your gifts I sing ; and thou, at whose fear'd stroke 
From rending earth the fiery courser broke, 
Great Neptune, O assist my artful song ! 
And thou to whom the woods and groves belong, 
Whose snowy heifers on her flow'ry plains 
In mighty herds the Csean Isle maintains ! 
Pan, happy shepherd, if thy cares divine, 
E'er to improve thy Msenalus incline, 
Leave thy Lycsean wood and native grove 
And with thy lucky smiles our work approve ; 
Be Pallas too, sweet oil's inventor, kind ; 
And he who first the crooked plough design'd, 
Sylvan us, god of all the woods, appear, 
Whose hands a new-drawn tender cypress bear ! 
Ye gods and goddesses, who e'er witli love 
Would guard our pastures, and our fields improve ; 
Ye, who new plants from unknown lands supply, 
And with condensing clouds obscure the sky, 
And drop them softly thence in fruitful showers ; 
Assist my enterprise, ye gentle powers ! 

And thou, great Csesar ! though we know not yet 
Among what gods thou'lt fix thy lofty seat : 
Whether thou'lt be the kind tutelar god 
Of thy own Rome, or with thy awful nod 



! Guide the vast world, while thy great hand shall ^v 
bear j- * 

The fruits and seasons of the turning year, f 

j And thy bright brows thy mother's myrtles wear ; -J 
j Whether thou'lt all the boundless ocean sway, 
I And seamen only to thyself shall pray ; 
Thule, the fairest island kneel to thee, 
And, that thou may'st her son by marriage be, 
Tethys will for the happy purchase yield 
To make a dowry of her watery field: 
Whether thou'lt add to heaven a brighter sign, 
A id o'er the summer months serenely shine ; 
Where between Cancer and Erigone, 
There yet remains a spacious room for thee ; 
Where the hot Scorpion too his arm declines, 
And more to thee than half his arch resigns ; 
Whate'er thou'lt be ; for sure the realms below 
No just pretence to thy command can show : 
No such ambition sways thy vast desires, 
Though Greece her own Elysian fields admires. 
And now, at last, contented Proserpine, 
Can all her mother's earnest prayers decline. 
Whate'er thou'lt be, O guide our gentle course ; 
And with thy smiles our bold attempts enforce ; 
With me th' unknowing rustics' wants relieve, 
And, though on earth, our sacred vows receive. 

Mr. Dryden, having received from Rymer 
his " Remarks on the Tragedies of the last 
Age," wrote observations on the blank leaves : 
which, having been in the possession of Mr. 
Garrick, are by his favour communicated to 
the public, that no particle of Dryden may be 
lost. 

" That we may less wonder why pity and 
terror are not now the only springs on which 
our tragedies move, and that Shakspeare may 
be more excused, Rapin confesses that the 
French tragedies now all run on the tendre ,• 
and gives the reason, because love is the passion 
which most predominates in our souls, and 
that therefore the passions represented become 
insipid, unless they are conformable to the 
thoughts of the audience. But it is to be con- 
cluded, that this passion works not now amongst 
the French so strongly as the other two did 
amongst the anci6nts. Amongst Us, who have 
a stronger genius for writing, the operations 
from the writing are much stronger ; for the 
raising of Shakspeare's passions is more from 
the excellency of the words and thoughts, than 
the justness of the occasion ; and, if he has been 
able to pick single occasions, he has never 
founded the whole reasonably : yet, by the ge- 
nius of poetry in writing, he has succeeded. 

" Rapin attributes more to the dictio, that is, 
to the words and discourse of a tragedy, than 
Aristotle has done, who places them in the last 
rank of beauties; perhaps, only last in order, 
because they are the last product of the design, 
of the disposition or connection of its parts ; of 
the characters, of the manners of those charac- 
ters, and of the thoughts proceeding from those 
manners. Rapin's words are remarkable : ' 'Tis 
not the admirable intrigue, the surprising events, 



D R Y D E N. 



131 



and extraordinary incidents, that make the 
beauty of a tragedy : 'tis the discourses, when 
they are natural and passionate : so are Shak- 
speare's. ' 

" The parts of a poem, tragic or heroic, are, 
" 1. The fable itself. 

" 2. The order or manner of its contrivance, 
in relation of the parts to the whole. 

" 3. The manners, or decency of the charac- 
ters, in speaking or acting what is proper for 
them, and proper to be shown by the poet. 
" 4. The thoughts which express the manners. 
" 5. The words which express those thoughts. 
" In the last of these, Homer excels Virgil : 
Virgil all the other ancient poets; and Shak- 
speare all modern poets. 

" For the second of these, the order : the 
meaning is, that a fable ought to have a begin- 
ning, middle, and an end, all just and natural ; 
so that that part, e. g. which is the middle, 
could not naturally be the beginning or end, 
and so of the rest : all depend on one another, 
like the links of a curious chain. If terror and 
pity are only to be raised, certainly this author 
follows Aristotle's rules, and Sophocles and 
Euripides' example; but joy may be raised too, 
and that doubly, either by seeing a wicked man 
punished, or a good man at last fortunate ; or 
perhaps indignation, to see wickedness prosper- 
ous, and goodness depressed : both these may be 
profitable to the end of a tragedy, reformation 
of manners ; but the last improperly, only as 
it begets pity in the audience ; though Aristotle, 
I confess, places tragedies of this kind in the 
second form. 

" He who undertakes to answer this excel- 
lent critique of Mr. Rymer, in behalf of our 
English poets against the Greek, ought to do it 
in this manner: either by yielding to him the 
greatest part of what he contends for, which 
consists in this, that the /llv&os, L <?. the»design 
and conduct of it, is more conducing in the 
Greeks to those ends of tragedy, which Aristotle 
and he propose, namely, to cause terror and 
pity* yet the granting this does not set the 
Greeks above the English poets. 

" But the answerer ought to prove two 
things : First, That the fable is not the greatest 
masterpiece of a tragedy, though it be the foun- 
dation of it. 

" Secondly, That other ends as suitable to the 
nature of tragedy may be found in the English, 
which were not in the Greek. 

" Aristotle places the fable first; not quoad 
dignitatem, sed quoad fundamentum : for a fable 
never so movingly contrived to those ends of 
his, pity and terror, will operate nothing on our 
affections, except the characters, manners, 
thoughts, and words are suitable. 

" So that it remains for Mr. Rymer to prove, 
that in all those, or the greatest part of them, 
we are interior to Sophocles and Euripides ; and 



this he has offered at, in some measure; but, I 
think, a little partially to the ancients. 

" For the fable itself, 'tis in the English more 
adorned with episodes, and larger than in the 
Greek poets ; consequently more diverting. For, 
if the action be but one, and that plain, with- 
out any counterturn of design or episode, i. e. 
under plot, how can it be so pleasing as the 
English, which have both underplot and a 
turned design, which keeps the audience in ex- 
pectation of the catastrophe? whereas in the 
Greek poets we see through the whole design 
at first. 

" For the characters, they are neither so many 
nor so various in Sophocles and Euripides, as 
in Shakspeare and Fletcher : only they are 
more adapted to those ends of tragedy which 
Aristotle commends to us, pity and terror. 

" The manners flow from the characters, and 
consequently must partake of their advantages 
and disadvantages. 

" The thoughts and words, which are the 
fourth and fifth beauties of tragedy, are cer^ 
tainly more noble and more poetical in the Eng- 
lish than in the Greek, which must be proved 
by comparing them somewhat more equitably 
than Mr. Rymer has done. 

" After all, we need not yield that the Eng- 
lish way is less conducing to move pity and ter- 
ror, because they often show virtue oppressed 
and vice punished : where they do not both, or 
either, they are not to be defended. 

" And if we should grant that the Greeks 
performed this better, perhaps it may admit of 
dispute, whether pity and terror are either the 
prime, or at least the only ends of tragedy. 

" 'Tis not enough that Aristotle had said so ; 
for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from 
Sophocles and Euripides ; and if he had seen 
ours, might have changed his mind. And 
chiefly we have to say (what I hinted on pity 
and terror, in the last paragraph save one), that 
the punishment of vice, and reward of virtue, 
are the most adequate ends of tragedy, because 
most conducing to good example of life. Now, 
pity is not so easily raised for a criminal (and 
the ancient tragedy always represents its chief 
person such) as it is for an innocent man ; and 
the suffering of innocence and punishment of 
the offender is of the nature of English tragedy: 
contrarily, in the Greek, innocence is unhappy 
often, and the offender escapes. Then we are 
not touched with the sufferings of any sort of 
men so much as of lovers ; and this was almost 
unknown to the ancients : so that they neither 
administered poetical justice, of which Mr. Ry- 
mer boasts, so well as we ; neither knew they 
the best common-place of pity, which is love. 

" He therefore unjustly blames us for not 
building on what the ancients left us ; for it 
seems, upon consideration of the premises, that 
we have wholly finished what they began. 



132 



Dm DEN. 



" My judgment on this piece is this : that it 
is extremely learned, but that the author of it 
is better read in the Greek than in the English 
poets ; that all writers ought to study this cri- 
tique, as the best account I have ever seen of 
the ancients ; that the model of tragedy, he has 
here given, is excellent, and extremely correct; 
but that it is not the only model of all tragedy, 
because it is too much circumscribed in plot, 
characters, &c. ; and, lastly, that we may be 
taught here justly to admire and imitate the 
ancients, without giving them the preference 
with this author, in prejudice to our ovn 
country. 

" Want of method in this excellent treatise 
makes the thoughts of the author sometimes ob- 
scure. 

" His meaning, that pity and terror are to 
be moved, is, that they are to be moved as the 
means conducing to the ends of tragedy, which 
are pleasure and instruction. 

" And these two ends may be thus distin- 
guished. The chief end of the poet is to please; 
for his immediate reputation depends on it. 

" The great end of a poem is to instruct, 
which is performed by making pleasure the 
vehicle of that instruction ; for poesy is an art, 
and all arts are made to profit. — Rapin. 

" The pity, which the poet is to labour for, 
is for the criminal, not for those or him whom 
he has murdered, or who have been the occasion j 
of the tragedy. The terror is likewise in the 
punishment of the same criminal ; who, if he 
be represented too great an offender, will not be 
pitied; if altogether innocent, his punishment 
will be unjust. 

" Another obscurity is, where he says, Sopho- 
cles perfected tragedy by introducing the third 
actor: that is, he meant three kinds of action: 
one company singing, or speaking; another 
playing on the music ; a third dancing. 

" To make a true judgment in this competi- 
tion betwixt the Greek poets and the English, 
in tragedy : 

" Consider, First, How Aristotle has defined 
a tragedy. Secondly, What he assigns the end 
of it to be. Thirdly, What he thinks the beau- 
ties of it. Fourthly, The means to attain the 
end proposed. 

" Compare the Greek and English tragic 
poets justly, and without partiality, according 
to those l'ules. 

" Then, Secondly, Consider whether Aristo- 
tle has made a just definition of tragedy , of its 
parts, of its ends, and of its beauties ; and whe- 
ther he, having not seen any othei's but those 
of Sophocles, Euripides, &c. had or truly could 
determine what all the excellences of tragedy 
are, and wherein they consist. 

" Next, show in what ancient tragedy was 
deficient ; for example, in the narrowness of its 
plots, and fewness of persons ; and try whether 



that be not a fault in the Greek poets; an* 
whether their excellency was so great, when the 
variety was visibly so little ; or whether what 
they did was not very easy to do. 

f' Then make a judgment on what the Eng- 
lish have added to their beauties : as, for exam- 
ple, not only more plot, but also new passions : 
as, namely, that of love, scarcely touched on by 
the ancients, except in this one example of 
Phaedra, cited by Mr. Rymer : and in that how 
short they were of Fletcher ! 

" Prove also that love, being a heroic passion, 
is fit for tragedy, which cannot be denied, be- 
cause of the example alleged of Phaedra : and 
how far Shakspeare has outdone them in friend- 
ship, &c. 

" To return to the beginning of this inquiry ; 
consider if pity and terror be enough for tra- 
gedy to move ; and I believe, upon a true de- 
finition of tragedy, it will be found that its 
work extends farther, and that it is to reform 
manners, by a delightful representation of hu- 
man life in great persons, by way of dialogue. 
If this be true, then not only pity and terror 
are to be moved, as the only means to bring us 
to virtue, but generally love to virtue, and ha- 
tred to vice; by showing the rewards of one, 
and punishments of the other ; at least by ren- 
dering virtue always amiable, though it be 
shown unfortunate ; and vice detestable, though 
it be shown triumphant. 

" If, then, the encouragement of virtue and 
discouragement of vice be the proper ends of 
poetry in tragedy, pity and terror, though good 
means are not the only. For all the passions, 
in their turns, are to be set in a ferment ; as joy, 
anger, love, fear, are to be used as the poet's 
common-places ; and a general concernment for 
the principal actors is to be raised, by making 
them appear such in their characters, their 
words, and actions, as will interest the audience 
in their fortunes. 

" And if, after all, in a larger sense, pity 
comprehends this concernment for the good, and 
terror includes detestation for the bad, then let 
us consider whether the English have not an- 
swered this end of tragedy as well as the an- 
cients, or perhaps better. 

" And here Mr. Rymer's objections against 
these plays are to be impartially weighed, that 
we may see whether they are of weight enough 
to turn the balance against our countrymen. 

" It is evident those plays, which he arraigns, 
have moved both those passions in a high degree 
upon the stage. 

" To give the glory of this away from the 
poet, and to place it upon the actors, seems un- 
just. 

" One reason is, because whatever actors they 
have found, the event has been the same ; that 
is, the same passions have been always moved ; 
which shows that there Is something of force 



D 11 Y D E N. 



133 



and merit in the plays themselves, conducing to 
the design of raising these two passions: and 
suppose them ever to have heen excellently act- 
ed, yet action only adds grace, vigour, and more 
life, upon the stage ; hut cannot give it wholly 
where it is not first. But, secondly, I dare 
appeal to those who have never seen them acted, 
if they have not found these two passions moved 
within them : and if the general voice will carry 
it, Mr. Rymer's prejudice will take off his 
single testimony. 

" This, "being matter of fact, is reasonahly to 
he established by this appeal ; as, if one man 
says it is night, when the rest of the world con- 
clude it to be day, there needs no farther argu- 
ment against him that it is so. 

" If he urge that the general taste is deprav- 
ed, his arguments to prove this can at best but 
evince that our poets took not the best way to 
raise those passions: but experience proves 
against him, that those means, which they have 
used, have been successful, and have produced 
them. 

" And one reason of that success is, in my 
opinion, this; that Shakspeare and Fletcher 
have written to the genius of the age and nation 
in which they lived ; for though nature, as he 
objects, is the same in all places, and reason too 
the same ; yet the climate, the age, the' disposi- 
tion of the people, to whom a poet writes, may 
be so different, that what pleased the Greeks 
would not satisfy an English audience. 

" And if they proceed upon a foundation of 
truer reason to please the Athenians than Shak- 
speare and Fletcher to please the English, it 
only shows that the Athenians were a more ju- 
dicious people; but the poet's business is cer- 
tainly to please the audience. 

" Whether our English audience have been 
pleased hitherto with acorns, as he calls it, or 
with bread, is the next question ; that is, whe- 
ther the means which Shakspeare and Fletcher 
have used, in their plays, to raise those passions 
beforenamed, be better applied to the ends by 
the Greek poets than by them. And perhaps 
we shall not grant him this wholly : let it be 
yielded that a writer is not to run down with 
the stream, or to please the people by their usual 
methods, but rather to reform their judgments, 
it still remains to prove that our theatre needs 
this total reformation. 

" The faults, which he has found in their de- 
sign, are rather wittily aggravated in many 
places than reasonably urged ; and as much may 
be returned on the Greeks by one who were as 
witty as himself. 

" They destroy not if they are granted, the 
foundation of the fabric ; only take away from 
the beauty of the symmetry ; for example, the 
faults in the character of the King, in « King 
and No-king, 5 are not, as he calls them, such as 
render him detestable, but only imperfections 



which accompany human nature, and are tor 
the most part excused by the violence of bis 
love ; so that they destroy not our pity or con«> 
cernment for him : this answer may be applied 
to most of his objections of that kind. 

" And Rolla committing many murders, 
when he is answerable but for one, is too se- 
verely arraigned by him ; for, it adds to our 
horror and detestation of the criminal; and 
poetic justice is not neglected neither; for we 
stab him in our minds for every offence which 
he commits ; and the point, which the poet is to 
gain on the audience, is not so much in the 
death of an offender as the raising a horror of 
his crimes. 

" That the criminal should neither be wholly 
guilty, nor wholly innocent, but so participating 
of both as to move both pity and terror, is cer- 
tainly a good rule, but not perpetually to be ob= 
served ; for that were to make all tragedies too 
much alike; which objection he foresaw, but 
has not fully answered. 

" To conclude, therefore ; if the plays of the 
ancients are more correctly plotted, ours are 
more beautifully written. And, if we can raise 
passions as high on worse foundations, it shows 
our genius in tragedy is greater ; for in all other 
parts of it the English have manifestly excelled 
them." 



The original of the following letter is pre- 
served in the Library at Lambeth, and was 
kindly imparted to the public by the reverend 
Dr. Vyse. 

Copy of an original letter from John Dryden, 
Esq. to his sons in Italy, from a MS. in 
the Lambeth Library, marked No. 935, 
p. 56. 
( Superscribed J 

" Al illustrissimo Sigre. 

" Carlo Dryden Camariere 

"d'Honore A.S.S. 

" In Roma. 
" Franca per Mantoua. 

" Sept. the 3d, our style. 
" Dear Sons, 
" Being now at Sir William Bowyer's in the 
country, I cannot write at large, because I find 
myself somewhat indisposed with a cold, and 
am thick of hearing, rather worse than I was 
in town. I am glad to find, by your letter of 
July 26th, your style, that you are both in 
health, but wonder you should think me so 
negligent as to forget to give you an account of 
the ship in which your parcel is to come. 1 
have written to you two or three letters con- 
cerning it, which I have sent by safe hands, as 
I told you, and doubt not but you have them 
before this can arrive to you. Being out of 
S 



134 



S M I T H. 



town, I have forgotten the ship's name, which 
your mother will inquire and put it into her 
letter, which is joined with mine. But the 
master's name I remember: he is called Mr. 
Ralph Thorp ; the ship is bound to Leghorn, 
consigned to Mr. Peter and Mr. Thomas Ball, 
merchants. I am of your opinion, that by Ton- 
son's means almost all our letters have miscar- 
ried for this last year. But, however, he has 
missed of his design in the dedication, though 
he had prepared the book for it ; for, in every 
figure of iEneas he has caused him to be drawn 
like King William, with a hooked nose. After 
my return to town, I intend to alter a play of 
Sir Robert Howard's, written long since, and 
lately put into my hands ; it is called " The 
Conquest of China by the Tartars." It will 
cost me six weeks study, with the probable 
benefit of a hundred pounds. In the mean time 
I am writing a song for St. Cecilia's Feast, who, 
you know, is the patroness of music. This is 
troublesome, and no way beneficial ; but I could 
not deny the stewards of the feast, who came in 
a body to me to desire that kindness, one of 
them being Mr. Bridgeman, whose parents are 
your mother's friends. I hope to send you 
thirty guineas between Michaelmas and Christ- 
mas, of which I will give you an account when 
I come to town. I remember the counsel you 
give me in your letter ; but dissembling, though 
lawful in some casesj is not my talent ; yet, for 



your sake, I will struggle with the plain open- 
ness of my nature, and keep in my just resent- 
ments against that degenerate order. In the 
mean time, I flatter not myself with any man- 
ner of hopes, but do my u *v, and suffer for 
God's sake ; being assured, btfore-hand, never 
to be rewarded, though the times should alter. 
Towards the latter end of this month, Septem- 
ber, Charles will begin to recover his perfect 
health, according to his nativity, which, casting 
it myself, I am sure is true, and all things hith- 
erto have happened accordingly to the very time 
that I predicted them : I hope at the same time 
to recover more health, according to my age. 
Remember me to poor Harry, whose prayers I 
earnestly desire. My Virgil succeeds in the 
world beyond its desert or my expectation. You 
know the profits might have been more; but 
neither my conscience nor my honour would 
suffer me to take them ; but I can never repent 
of my constancy, since I am thoroughly per- 
suaded of the justice of the cause for which I 
suffer. It has pleased God to raise up many 
friends to me amongst my enemies, though they 
who ought to have been my friends are negli- 
gent of me. I am called to dinner, and cannot 
go on with this letter, which I desire you to ex- 
cuse ; and am 

" Your most affectionate father, 

" John Dryden." 



SMITH. 



Edmund Smith: is one of those lucky writei-s 
Avho have, without much labour, attained high 
reputation, and who are mentioned with rever- 
ence rather for the possession than the exertion 
of uncommon abilities. 

Of his life little is known ; and that little 
claims no praise but what can be given to intel- 
lectual excellence seldom employed to any vir- 
tuous purpose. His character, as given by Mr. 
Oldisworth with all the partiality of friendship, 
which is said by Dr. Burton to show 4< what 
fine things oneanan of parts can say of another," 
and which, however, comprises great part of 
what can be known of Mr. Smith, it is better 
to transcribe at once than to take by pieces. I 
shall subjoin such little memorials as accident 
has enabled me to collect. 

Mr. Edmund Smith was the only son of an 
eminent merchant, one Mr. Neaie, by a daugh- 



ter of the famous Baron Lechmere. Some mis- 
fortunes of his father, which were soon follow- 
ed by his death, were the occasion of the son's 
being left very young in the hands of a near re- 
lation (one who married Mr. Neale's sister) 
whose name was Smith. 

This gentleman and his lady treated him a3 
their own child, and put him to Westminster 
School, under the care of Dr. Busby ; whence, 
after the loss of his faithful and generous guard- 
ian (whose name he assumed and retained) he 
was removed to Christ-church, in Oxford, and 
there by his aunt handsomely maintained till 
her death ; after which he continued a member 
of that learned and ingenious society till within 
five years of his own ; though, some time be- 
fore his leaving Christ-church, he was sent for 
by his mother to Worcester, and owned and ac- 
knowledged as her legitimate son ; which bad 
not been mentioned, but to wipe off the asper- 



S M I T H. 



135 



sions that were ■ignorantly cast by some on his 
birth. It is to be remembered, for our Au- 
thor's honour, that, when at Westminster elec- 
tion he stood a candidate for one of the univer- 
sities, he so signally distinguished himself by 
his conspicuous performances, that there arose 
no small contention between the representative 
electors of Trinity College, in Cambridge, and 
Christ-church, in Oxon, which of those two 
royal societies should adopt him as their own. 
But the electors of Trinity College having the 
preference of choice that year, they resolutely 
elected him ; who yet, being invited at the same 
time to Christ-church, chose to accept of a stu- 
dentship there. Mr. Smith's perfections, as 
well natural as acquired, seem to have been 
formed upon Plorace's plan, who says, in his 
" Art of Poetry," 

— Ego nee studium sine divite vena, 
Nee rude quid profit video ingenium ; alterius sic 
Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice. 

He was endowed by nature with all those ex- 
cellent and necessary qualifications which are 
previous to the accomplishment of a great man. 
His memory was large and tenacious, yet by a 
curious felicity chiefly susceptible of the finest 
impressions it received from the best authors he 
read, which it always preserved in their primi- 
tive strength and amiable order. 

-He had a quickness of apprehension and vi- 
vacity of understanding which easily took in 
and surmounted the most subtle and knotty 
parts of mathematics and metaphysics. His 
wit was prompt and flowing, yet solid and 
piercing; his taste delicate, his head clear, and 
his way of expressing his thoughts perspicuous 
and engaging. I shall say nothing of his per- 
son, which was yet so well turned, that no neg- 
lect of himself In his dress could render it dis- 
agreeable ; insomuch that the fair sex, who ob- 
served and esteemed him, at once commended 
and reproved him by the name of the handsome 
sloven. An eager but generous and noble emu- 
lation grew up with him ; which (as it were a 
rational sort of instinct) pushed him upon striv- 
ing to excel in every art and science that could 
make him a credit to his College, and that col- 
lege the ornament of the most learned and polite 
University ; and it was his happiness to have 
several contemporaries and fellow-students who 
exercised and excited this virtue in themselves, 
and others thereby becoming so deservedly in 
favour with this age, and so good a proof of its 
nice discernment. His judgment, naturally good, 
soon ripened into an exquisite fineness and dis- 
tinguishing sagacity, which, as it was active and 
busy, so it was vigorous and manly, keeping- 
even paces with a rich and strong imagination, 
always upon the wing, and never tired with 
aspiring. Hence it was, that, though he writ 



as young as Cowley, he had no puerilities ; and 
his earliest productions were so far from hav- 
ing any thing in them mean and trifling, that, 
like the junior compositions of Mr. Stepney, 
they may make gray authors blush. There are 
many of his first essays in oratory, in epigram, 
elegy, and epique, still handed about the Uni- 
versity in manuscript, which show a masterly 
hand ; and though maimed and injured by fre- 
quent transcribing, make thtir. way into our 
most celebrated miscellanies, where they shine 
with uncommon lustre. Besides those verses 
in the Oxford books which he could not help 
setting his name to, several of his compositions 
came abroad under other names, which his own 
singular modesty and faithful silence strove in 
vain to conceal. The Encaenia and public Col- 
lections of the University upon State Subjects 
were never in such esteem, either for elegy and 
congratulation, as when he contributed most 
largely to them ; and it was n atural for those 
who knew his peculiar way of writing to turn 
to his share in the work, as by far the most re- 
lishing part of the entertainment. As his parts 
were extraordinary, so he well knew how to 
improve them ; and not only to polish the dia- 
mond, but enchase it in the most solid and dur- 
able metal. Though he was an academic the 
greatest part of his life, yet he contracted no 
sourness of temper, no spice of pedantry, no itch 
of disputation, or obstinate contention for the 
old or new philosophy, no assuming way of dic- 
tating to others, which are faults (though ex- 
cusable) which some are insensibly led into who 
are constrained to dwell long within the walls 
of a private college. His conversation was plea- 
sant and instructive ; and what Horace said of 
Plotius, Varius, and Virgil, might justly be ap- 
plied to him : 

Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus Amioo. 

Sat. v. 1. I. 

As correct a writer as he was in his most 
elaborate pieces, he read the works of others 
with candour, and reserved his greatest severity 
for his own compositions ; being readier to cher- 
ish and advance than damp or depress a rising 
genius, and as patient of being excelled himself 
(if any could excel him) as industrious to excel 
others. 

It were to be wished he had confined himself 
to a particular profession who was capable ol 
surpassing in any; but, in this, his want of ap- 
plication was in a great measure owing to his 
want of due encouragement. 

He passed through the exercises of the Col- 
lege and University with unusual applause ; and 
though he often suffered his friends to call him 
off from his retirements, and to lengthen out 
those jovial avocations, yet his return to his 
studies was so much the more passionate, and 



136 



SMITH. 



his intention upon those refined pleasures ef 
"reading and thinking so vehement (to which 
bis facetious and unbended intervals bore no 
oroportion) that the habit grew upon him, and 
the seriesof meditation and reflection being kept 
op whole weeks together, he could better sort 
ais ideas, and take in the sundry parts of a 
science at one view, without interruption or 
confusion. Some indeed of his acquaintance, 
who were pleased to distinguish between the 
wit and the scholar, extolled him altogether on 
the account of these titles ; but others, who knew 
Mm better, could not forbear doing him justice 
as a prodigy in both kinds. He had signalized 
himself, in the schools, as a philosopher and po- 
lemic of extensive knowledge and deep penetra- 
tion ; and went through all the courses with a 
■wise regard to the dignity and importance of 
each science. I remember him in the Divinity- 
school responding and disputing with a perspi- 
cuous energy, a ready exactness, and command- 
ing force of argument, when Dr. Jane worthily- 
presided in the chair ; whose condescending and 
disinterested commendation of him gave him 
such a reputation as silenced the envious malice 
of his enemies, who durst not contradict the 
approbation of so profound a master in theology. 
None of those self-sufficient creatures who have 
either trifled with philosophy, by attempting to 
ridicule it, or have encumbered it with novel 
terms and burdensome explanations, understood 
its real weight and purity half so well as Mr. 
Smith. He was too discerning to allow of the 
character of unprofitable, rugged, and abstruse, 
which some superficial sciolists (so very smooth 
and polite as to admit of no impression) either 
out of an unthinking indolence or an ill ground- 
ed prejudice had affixed to this sort of studies. 
He knew the thorny terms of philosophy served 
well to fence in the true doctrines of religion; 
and looked upon school divinity as upon a rough 
but well- wrought armour, "which might at once 
adorn and defend the Christian hero, and equip 
him for the combat. 

Mr. Smith had a long and perfect intimacy 
with all the Greek and Latin classics ; with 
which he had carefully compared whatever was 
■worth pc asing in the French, Spanish, and 
Italian (to which languages he was no stranger) 
and in all the celebrated writers of his own 
country. But then, according to the curious 
observation of the late Earl of Shaftesbury, he 
kept the poet in awe by regular criticism ; and, 
as it were, married the two arts for their mu- 
tual support and improvement. There was not 
a tract of credit upon that subject which he had 
not diligently examined, from Aristotle down 
to Hedelin and Bossu; so that, having each rule 
constantly before him, he could carry the art 
through every poem, and at once point out the 
graces and deformities. By this means, he 



seemed to read with a design to correct as well 
as imitate. 

Being thus prepared, he could not but taste 
every little delicacy that was set before him ; 
though it was impossible for him at the same 
time to be fed and nourished with any thing but 
what was substantial and lasting. He consid- 
ered the ancients and moderns not as parties or 
rivals for fame, TTut as architects upon one and 
the same plan, the Art of Poetry ; according to 
which he judged, approved, and blamed, with- 
out flattery or detraction. If he did not always 
commend the compositions of others, it was not 
ill-nature (which was not in his temper), but 
strict justice would not let him call a few 
flowers set in ranks, a glib measure, and so 
many couplets, by the name of poetry ; he was 
of Ben Jonson's opinion, who could not ad- 
mire 

—Verses as smooth and soft as cream, 
In which thure was neither depth roi stream. 

And therefore, though his want of complaisance 
for some men's overbearing vanity made bim 
enemies, yet the better part of mankind were 
obliged by the freedom of his reflections. 

His Bodleian Speech, though taken from a 
remote and imperfect copy, hath shown the 
world how great a master he was of the Cicer- 
onian eloquence, mixed with the conciseness 
and force of Demosthenes, the elegant and mov- 
ing turns of Pliny, and the acute and wise re- 
flections of Tacitus. 

Since Temple and Roscommon, no man un- 
derstood Horace better, especially as to his hap- 
py diction, rolling numbers, beautiful imagery, 
and alternate mixture of the soft and the su- 
blime. This endeared Dr. Hannes's odes to 
him, the finest genius for Latin lyric since the 
Augustan age. His friend Mr. Philips's Ode 
to Mr. St. John (late Lord Bolingbroke) after 
the manner of Horace's Lusory, or Amatorian 
Odes, is certainly a masterpiece; but Mr. 
Smith's u Pocockius" is of the sublimer kind, 
though, like Waller's writings upon Oliver 
Cromwell, it wants not the most delicate and 
surprising turns peculiar to the person praised. 
I do not remember to have seen any thing like 
it in Dr. Batkurst,* who had made some at- 
tempts this way with applause. He was an 
excellent judge of humanity; and so good an 
historian, that in familiar discourse he would 
talk over the most memorable facts in antiquity, 
the lives, actions, and characters of celebrated 
men, with amazing facility and accuracy. As 
he had thoroughly read and digested Thuanus's 
works, so he was able to copy after him ; and 

* Dr. Ralph Batburst, whose Life and Literary 
Remains were published in 1761, by Mr. Thomas 
Warton.— C. 



S M I T H. 



137 



his talent in this kind was so well known and 
allowed, that he had heen singled out by some 
great men to write a history which it was their 
interest to have done with the utmost art and 
dexterity. 1 shall not mention for what rea- 
sons this design was dropped, though they are 
very much to Mr. Smith's honour. The truth 
is, and I speak it before living witnesses, whilst 
an agreeable company could fix him upon a sub- 
ject of useful literature nobody shone to greater 
advantage ; he seemed to be that Memmius 
whom Lucretius speaks of : 

— Quem tu, Dea, tempore in cr.r.ni 
Omnibus orna umvo'ui ti excellere rebus. 

His works are not many, and those scattered 
up and down in miscellanies and collections, be- 
ing wrested from him by his friends with great 
difficulty and reluctance. All of them together 
make but a small part of that much greater body 
which lies dispersed in the possession of numer- 
ous acquaintance ; and cannot perhaps be made 
entire, without great injustice to him, because 
few of them had his last hand, and the tran- 
scriber was often obliged to take the liberties of 
a friend. His condolence for the death of Mr. 
Philips is full of the noblest beauties, and hath 
done justice to the ashes of that second Milton, 
whose writings will last as long as the English 
language, generosity, and valour. For him 
Mr. Smith had contracted a perfect friendship ; 
a passion he was most susceptible of, and whose 
laws he looked upon as sacred and inviolable. 

Every subject that passed under his pen had 
all the life, proportion, and embellishments, be- 
stowed on it, which an exquisite skill, a warm 
imagination, and a cool judgment, possibly could 
bestow on it. The epic, lyric, elegiac, eveiy 
sort of poetry he touched upon (and he touched 
upon a great variety) was raised to its proper 
height, and the differences between each of them 
observed with a judicious accuracy. We saw 
the old rules and new beauties placed in admir- 
able order by each other; and there was a pre- 
dominant fancy and spirit of his own infused, 
superior to what some draw off from the an- 
cients, or from poesies here and there culled out 
of the moderns, by a painful industry and ser- 
vile imitation. His contrivances were adroit 
and magnificent ; his images lively and ade- 
quate; his sentiments charming and majestic; 
his expressions natural and bold ; his numbers 
various and sounding ; and that enamelled mix- 
ture of classical wit, which without redundance 
and affectation sparkled through his writings, 
and were no less pertinent and agreeable. 

His " Phaedra" is a consummate tragedy, and 
the success of it was as great as the most san- 
guine expectations of his friends could promise 
or foresee. The number of nights, and the 
common method of filling the house, are not 
always the surest marks of judging what en- 



couragement a play meets with ; but the gener- 
osity of all the persons of a refined taste about 
town was remarkable on this occasion : and it 
must not be forgotten how zealously Mr. Addi- 
son espoused his interest, with all the elegant 
judgment and diffusive good-nature for which 
that accomplished gentleman and author is so 
justly valued by mankind. But as to " Phae- 
dra," she has certainly made a finer figure un- 
der Mr. Smith's conduct upon the English 
stage, than either in Rome or Athens; and if 
she excels the Greek and Latin " Phaedra," I 
need not say she surpasses the French one, 
though embellished with whatever regular beau- 
ties and moving softness Racine himself could 
give her. 

No man had a juster notion of the difficulty 
of composing than Mr. Smith ; and sometimes 
he would create greater difficulties than he had 
reason to apprehend. Writing with ease what 
(as Mr.Wycherley speaks) may be easily writ- 
ten, moved his indignation. When he was 
writing upon a subject, he would seriously con- 
sider what Demosthenes, Homer, Virgil, or 
Horace, if alive, would say upon that occasion, 
which whetted him to exceed himself as well as 
others. Nevertheless, he could not or would 
not finish several subjects he undertook : which 
may be imputed either to the briskness of his 
fancy, still hunting after a new matter, or to an 
occasional indolence, which spleen and lassitude 
brought upon him, which, of all his foibles, 
the world was least inclined to forgive. That 
this was not owing to conceit or vanity, or a 
fulness of himself, (a frailty which has been 
imputed to no less men than Shakspeare and 
Jonson) is clear from hence ; because he left 
his works to the entire disposal of his friends, 
whose most rigorous censures he even courted 
and solicited, submitting to their animadver- 
sions and the freedom they took with them with 
an unreserved and prudent resignation. 

I have seen sketches and rough draughts of 
some poems to be designed set out analytically ; 
wherein the fable, structure, and connection, the. 
images, incidents, moral, episodes, and a great 
Variety of ornaments, were so finely laid out, so 
well fitted to the rules of art, and squared so 
exactly to the precedents of the ancients, that I 
have often looked on these poetical elements 
with the same concern with which curious men 
are affected at the sight of the most entertain- 
ing remains and ruins of an antique figure or 
building. Those fragments of the learned, 
which some men have been so proud of their 
pains in collecting, are useless rarities, without 
form and without life, when compared with 
these embryos, which wanted not spirit enough 
to preserve them ; so that I cannot help think- 
ing that if some of them were to come abroad 
they would be as highly valued by the poets as 
the sketches of Julio and Titian are by the 



138 



S M I T H. 



painters ; though there is nothing in them but 
a few outlines, as to the design and proportion. 

It must be confessed, that Mr. Smith had 
some defects in his conduct, which those are 
most apt to remember who could imitate him 
in nothing else. His freedom with himself 
drew severer acknowledgments from him than 
all the malice he ever provoked was capable of 
advancing, and he did not scruple to give even 
his iviisfortunes the hard name of faults ; but, 
if the world had half his good-nature, all the 
shady parts would be entirely struck out of his 
character. 

A man who, under poverty, calamities, and 
disappointments, could make so many friends, 
and those so truly valuable, must have just and 
noble ideas of the passion of friendship, in the 
success of which consisted the greatest, if not 
the only happiness of his life. He knew very 
well what was due to his birth, though fortune 
threw him short of it in every other circum- 
stance of life. He avoided making any, though 
perhaps reasonable, complaints of her dispensa- 
tions, under which he had honour enough to be 
easy, without touching the favours she flung ie 
his way when offered to him at a price of a 
more durable reputation. He took care to have 
no dealings with mankind in which he could 
not be just : and he desired to be at no other 
expense in his pretensions than that of intrinsic 
merit, which was the only burden and reproach 
he ever brought upon his friends. He could 
say, as Horace did of himself, what I never yet 
saw translated : 

Meo sum pauper in sere. 

At his coming to town, no man was more 
surrounded by all those who really had or pre- 
tended to wit, or more courted by the great 
men who had then a power and opportunity of 
encouraging arts and sciences, and gave proofs 
of their fondness for the name of patron in many 
instances, which will ever be remembered to 
their glory. Mr. Smith s character grew upon 
his friends by intimacy, and outwent the strong- 
est prepossessions which had been conceived in 
his favour. Whatever quarrel a few sour crea- 
tures, whose obscurity is their happiness, may 
possibly have to the age, yet amidst a studied 
neglect and total disuse of all those ceremonial 
attendances, fashionable equipments, and exter- 
nal recommendation, which are thought neces- 
sary introductions into the grande monde, this 
gentleman was so happy as still to please ; and 
whilst the rich, the gay, the noble, and honour- 
able, saw how much he excelled in wit and 
learning, they easily forgave him all other differ- 
ences. Hence it was that both his acquaintance 
and retirements were his own free choice. What 
Mr. Prior observes upon a very great character 
was true of him, that most of Ms faults brought 
their excuse with them. 



Those who blamed him most understood him' 
least, it being the custom of the vulgar to charge 
an excess upon the most complaisant, and to 
form a character by the moral of a few, who 
have sometimes spoiled an hour or two, in good 
company. Where only fortune is wanting to 
make a great name, that single exception can 
never pass upon the best judges and most equit- 
able observers of mankind ; and when the time 
comes for the world to spare their pity, we may 
justly enlarge our demands upon them for their 
admiration. 

Some few years before his death, he had en- 
gaged himself in several considerable undertak- 
ings : in all which he had prepared the world 
to expect mighty things from him. I have seen 
about ten sheets of his English Pindar, which 
exceeded any thing of that kind I could ever 
hope for in our language. He had drawn out 
a plan of a tragedy of the Lady Jane Grey, and 
had gone through several scenes of it. But he 
could not well have bequeathed that work to 
better hands than where, I hear, it is at present 
lodged; and the bare mention of two such 
names may justify the largest expectations, and 
is sufficient to make the town an agreeable in- 
vitation. 

His greatest and noblest undertaking was 
Longinus. He had finished an entire transla- 
tion of the " Sublime," which he sent to the 
Reverend Mr. Richard Parker, a friend of his, 
late of Merton College, an exact critic in the 
Greek tongue, from whom it came to my hands, 
The French version of Monsieur Boileau, 
though truly valuable, was far short of it. He 
proposed a large addition to this work, of notes 
and observations of his own, with an entire 
system of the Art of Poetry, in three books, un- 
der the titles of Thought, Diction, and Figure. 
I saw the last of these perfect, and in a fair 
copy, in which he showed prodigious judgment 
and reading ; and particularly had reformed the 
Art of Rhetoric, by reducing that vast and con- 
fused heap of terms, with which a long succes- 
sion of pedants had encumbered the world, to a 
very narrow compass, comprehending all that 
was useful and ornamental in poetry. Under 
each head and chapter, he intended to make re- 
marks upon all the ancients and moderns, the 
Greek, Latin, English, French, Spanish, and 
Italian poets, and to note their several beauties 
and defects. 

What remains of his works is left, as I am 
informed, in the hands of men of worth and 
judgment, who loved him. It cannot be sup- 
posed they would suppress any thing that was 
his, but out of respect to his memory, and for 
want of proper hands to finish what so great a 
genius had begun. 

Such is the declamation of Oldisworth, writ- 
ten while his admiration was yet fresh, and his 



S M I T H. 



1S9 



kindness warm : and therefore such as, with- 
out any criminal purpose of deceiving, shows a 
strong desire to make the most of all favourahle 
truth. I cannot much commend the perform- 
ance. The praise is often indistinct, and the 
sentences are loaded with words of more pomp 
than use. There is little, however, that can be 
contradicted, even when a plainer tale comes to 
be told. 

Edmund Neale, known by the name of 
Smith, was born at Handley, the seat of the 
Lechmeres, in Worcestershire. The year of his 
birth is uncertain.* 

He was educated at Westminster. It is 
known to have been the practice of Dr. Busby 
to detain those youth long at school of whom he 
had formed the highest expectations. Smith 
took his master's degree on the 8th of July, 
1696 ; he therefore was probably admitted into 
the University in 1689, when we may suppose 
twenty years old. 

His reputation for literature in his college 
was such as has been told ; but the indecency 
and licentiousness of his behaviour drew upon 
him, Dec. 24, 1694, while he was yet only bach- 
elor, a public admonition, entered upon record, 
in order to his expulsion. Of this reproof the 
effect is not known. He was probably less no- 
torious. At Oxford, as we all know, much 
will be forgiven to literary merit ; and of that 
he had exhibited sufficient evidence by his ex- 
cellent ode on the death of the great Orientalist, 
Dr. Pocock, who died in 1691, and whose praise 
must have been written by Smith when he had 
been but two years in the University. 

This ode, which closed the second volume of 
the " Musse Anglicanse," though perhaps some 
objections may be made to its Latinity, is by far 
the best lyric composition in that collection ; 
nor do I know where to find it equalled among 
the modern writers. It expresses, with great 
felicity, images not classical in classical diction ; 
its digressions and returns have been deserved- 
ly recommended by Trapp as models for imi- 
tation. 

He had several imitations from Cowley : 

Testitur hinc tot sermo coloribus 

XJuot tu, Pococki, dissimilis tui 
Orator effers, quot vicissim 
Te memores celebrare gaudent. 

I will not commend the figure which makes 
the orator pronounce the colours, or give to 
colours memory and delight. I quote it, how- 
ever, as an imitation of these lines : 



* By his epitaph he appears to have been forty- 
two years old when he died. He was consequently 
born in the year 1668.— R. 



So many languages he had in store, 

That only fame shall speak of him in more. 

The simile, by which an old man, retaining 
the fire of his youth, is compared to iEtna flam- 
ing through the snow, which Smith has used 
with great pomp, is stolen from Cowley, how- 
ever little worth the labour of conveyance. 

He proceeded to take his degree of master of 
arts, July 8, 1696. Of the exercises which he 
performed on that occasion, I have not heard 
any thing memorable. 

As his years advanced, he advanced in repu- 
tation : for he continued to cultivate his mind, 
though he did not amend his irregularities : by 
which he gave so much offence, that April 24, 
1700, the Dean and Chapter declared " the 
place of Mr. Smith void, he having been con- 
victed of riotous behaviour in the house of Mr. 
Cole, an apothecary ; but it was referred to the 
Dean when and upon what occasion the sen- 
tence should be put into execution." 

Thus tenderly was he treated : the governors 
of his college could hardly keep him, and yet 
wished that he would not force them to drive 
him away. 

Some time afterwards he assumed an appear- 
ance of decency : in his own phrase, he whitened 
himself, having a desire to obtain the censor- 
ship, an office of honour and some profit in the 
college ; but, when the election came, the pre- 
ference was given to Mr. Foulkes his junior; 
the same, I suppose, that joined with Freind in 
an edition of part of Demosthenes. The censor 
is a tutor ; and it was not thought prOper to 
trust the super intendance of others to a man 
who took so little care of himself. 

From this time Smith employed his malice 
and his wit against the dean, Dr. Aldrich, 
whom he considered as the opponent of his 
claim. Of his lampoon upon him, I once heard 
a single line too gross to be repeated. 

But he was still a genius and a scholar, and 
Oxford was unwilling to lose him ; he was en- 
dured, with all his pranks and his vices, two 
years longer ; but on Dec. 20, 1705, at the in- 
stance of all the canons, the sentence declared 
five years before was put in execution. 

The execution was, I believe, silent and ten- 
der ; for one of his friends, from whom I learn- 
ed much of his life, appeared not to know it. 

He was now driven to London, where he as- 
sociated himself with the whigs, whether be- 
cause they were in power, or because the tories 
had expelled him, or because he was a whig by 
principle, may perhaps be doubted. He was, 
however, caressed by men of great abilities, 
whatever were their party, and was supported 
by the liberality of those who delighted in his 
conversation. 

There was once a design, hinted at by Oldis- 
worth, to have made him useful. One evening, 



140 



S M I T H. 



as he was sitting- with a friend at a tavern, he 
was called down hy the waiter ; and, having 
stayed some time helow, came up thoughtful. 
After a pause, said he to his friend, " He that 
wanted me below was Addison, whose business 
was to tell me that a history of the Revolution 
was intended, and to propose that I should un- 
dertake it. I said, ' What shall I do with the 
character of Lord Sunderland?' and Addison 
immediately returned, ' When, Rag, were you 
drunk last?' and went away." 

Captain Rag was a name which he got at Ox- 
ford by his negligence of dress. 

This story I heard from the late Mr. Clark, 
of Lincoln's Inn, to whom it was told by the 
friend of Smith. 

Such scruples might debar him from some 
profitable employments ; but as they could not 
deprive him of any real esteem, they left him 
many friends ; and no man was ever better in- 
troduced to the theatre than he, who, in that 
violent conflict of parties, had a prologue and 
epilogue from the first wits on either side. 

But learning and nature will now and then 
take different courses. His play pleased the 
critics, and the critics only. It was, as Addi- 
son has recorded, hardly heard the third night. 
Smith had indeed trusted entirely to his merit, 
had ensured no band of applauders, nor used 
any artifice to force success, and found that na- 
tive excellence was not sufficient for its own 
support. 

The play, however, was bought by Lintot, 
who advanced the price from fifty guineas, the 
current rate, to sixty ; and Halifax, the general 
patron, accepted the dedication. Smith's indol- 
ence kept him from writing the dedication, till 
Lintot, after fruitless importunity, gave notice 
that he would publish the play without it. 
Now, therefore, it was written; and Halifax 
expeeted the Author with his book, and had 
prepared to reward him with a place of three 
hundred pounds a year. Smith, by pride, or 
caprice, or indolence, or bashfulness, neglected 
to attend him, though doubtless warned and 
pressed by his friends, and at last missed his re- 
ward by not going to solicit it. 

Addison has, in the " Spectator," mentioned 
the neglect of Smith's tragedy as disgraceful to 
the nation, and imputes it to the fondness for 
operas then prevailing. The authority of Ad- 
dison is great ; yet the voice of the people, when 
to please the people is the purpose, deserves re- 
gard. In this question, I cannot but think the 
people in the right. The fable is mythological, 
a story which we are accustomed to reject as 
false ; and the manners are so distant from our 
own, that we know them not from sympathy, 
but by study ; the ignorant do not understand 
the action; the learned reject it as a school-boy's 
tale ; incredvlus odi. What I cannot for a mo- 
ment believe, I cannot for a moment behold 



with interest or anxiety. The sentiments thus 
remote from life are removed yet further by the 
diction, which is too luxuriant and splendid for 
dialogue, and envelopes the thoughts rather than 
displays them. It is a scholar's play, such as 
may please the reader rather than the spectator ; 
the work of a vigorous and elegant mind, ac- 
customed to please itself with its own concep- 
tions, but of little acquaintance with the course 
of life. 

Dennis tells us, in one of his pieces, that he 
had once a design to have written the tragedy 
of " Phsedra ;" but was convinced that the ac- 
tion was too mythological. 

In 1709, a year after the exhibition of " Phae- 
dra," died John Philips, the friend and fellow- 
collegian of Smith, who, on that occasion, wrote 
a poem, which justice must place among the 
best elegies which our language can show, an 
elegant mixture of fondness and admiration, of 
dignity and softness. There are some passages 
too ludicrous ; but every human performance 
has its faults. 

This elegy it was the mode among his friends 
to purchase for a guinea ; and as his acquain- 
tance was numerous, it was a very profitable 
poem. 

Of his Pindar, mentioned by Oldisworth, I 
have never otherwise heard. His Longinus he 
intended to accompany with some illustrations, 
and had selected his instances of the false sub- 
lime from the works of Blackmore. 

He resolved to try again the fortune of the 
stage with the story of Lady Jane Grey. It is 
not unlikely that his experience of the inefficacy 
and incredibility of a mythological tale might 
determine him to choose an action from the 
English history, at no great distance from our 
own times, which was to end in a real event, 
produced by the operation of known characters. 

A subject will not easily occur that can give 
more opportunities of informing the understand- 
ing, for which Smith was unquestionably qua- 
lified, or for moving the passions, in which I 
suspect him to have had less power. 

Having formed his plan and collected mate- 
rials, he declared that a few months would com- 
plete his design ; and, that he might pursue his 
work with less frequent avocations, he was, in 
June, 1710, invited by Mr. George Ducket to 
his house at Gartham, in Wiltshire. Here he 
found such opportunities of indulgence as did 
not much forward his studies, and particularly 
some strong ale, too delicious to be resisted. 
He ate and drank till he found himself pletho- 
ric ; and then, resolving to ease himself by eva- 
cuation, he wrote to an apothecary in the neigh- 
bourhood a prescription of a purge so forcible, 
that the apothecary thought it his duty to delay 
it till he had given notice of its danger. Smith, 
not pleased with the contradiction of a shopman, 
and boastful of his own knowledge, treated the 



SMITH. 



notice with rude contempt, and swallowed his 
own medicine, which, in July, 1710, brought 
him to the grave. He was buried at Garth am. 

Many years afterwards, Ducket communi- 
cated to Oldmixon, the historian, an account 
pretended to have been received from Smith, 
that Clarendon's History was, in its publica- 
tion, corrupted by Aldrich, Smalridge, and At- 
terbury ; and that Smith was employed to forge 
and insert the alterations. 

This story was published triumphantly by 
Oldmixon, and may be supposed to have been 
eagerly received; but its progress was soon 
checked: for, finding its way into the Journal 
of Trevoux, it fell under the eye of Atterbury, 
then an exile in France, who immediately de- 
nied the charge, with this remarkable particu- 
lar, that he never in his whole life had once 
spoken to Smith;* his company being, as must 
be inferred, not accepted by those who attended 
to their characters. 

The charge was afterwards very diligently 
refuted by Dr. Burton of Eton, a man eminent 
for literature ; and, though not of the same par- 
ty with Aldrich and Atterbury, too studious of 
truth to leave them burdened with a false 
charge. The testimonies which he has collect- 
ed have convinced mankind that either Smith 
or Ducket was guilty of wilful and malicious 
falsehood. 

This controversy brought into view those 
parts of Smith's life, which, with more honour 
to his name, might have been concealed. 

Of Smith I can yet say a little more. He 
was a man of such estimation among his com- 
panions, that the casual censures or praises 
which he dropped in conversation were con- 
sidered, like those of Scaliger, as worthy of pre- 
servation. 

He had great readiness and exactness of cri- 
ticism, and by a cursory glance over a new 
composition would exactly tell all its faults and 
beauties. 

He was remarkable for the power of reading 
with great rapidity, and of retaining, with 
great fidelity, what he so easily collected. 

He therefore always knew what the present 
question required; and, when his friends ex- 
pressed their wonder at his acquisitions, made 
in a state of apparent negligence and drunken- 
ness, he never discovered his hours of reading 
or method of study, bvit involved himself in af- 
fected silence, and fed his own vanity with 
their admiration. 

One practice he had, which was easily ob- 
served : if any thought or image was presented 



* Kee Bishop Atterbury's " Epistolary Corres- 
pondence," 1799, vol. III. p. 126. 133. In the same 
work, vol. I. p. 325, it appears that Smith was at 
one time suspected to have been author of the " Tale 
of a Tub."— N. 



to his mind that he could use or improve, he 
did not suffer it to be lost : but, amidst the jol- 
lity of a tavern, or in the warmth of conversa- 
tion, very diligently committed it to paper. 

Thus it was that he had gathered two quires 
of hints for his new tragedy ; of which Rowe, 
when they were put into his hands, could 
make, as he says, very little use, but which the 
collector considered as a valuable stock of ma- 
terials. 

When he came to London, his way of life 
connected him with the licentious and dissolute ; 
and he affected the airs and gayety of a man of 
pleasure : but his dress was always deficient ; 
scholastic cloudiness still hung about him ; and 
his merriment was sure to produce the scorn of 
his companions. 

With all his carelessness and all his vices, he 
was one of the murmurers at fortune ; and 
wondered why he was suffered to be poor, 
when Addison was caressed and preferred; nor 
would a very little have contented him; for 
he estimated his wants at six hundred pounds 
a year. 

In his course of reading, it was particular 
that he had diligently perused, and accurately 
remembered, the old romances of knight er- 
rantry. 

He had a high opinion of his own merit, and 
was something contemptuous in his treatment 
of those whom he considered as not qualified to 
oppose or contradict him. He had many frail- 
ties ; yet it cannot but be supposed that he had 
great merit who could obtain to the same play 
a prologue from Addison and an epilogue froir 
Prior ; and who could have at once the patron- 
age of Halifax and the praise of Oldisworth, 

For the power of communicating these mi- 
nu + e memorials, I am indebted to my conversa- 
tion with Gilbert Walmsley, late registrar of 
the ecclesiastical court of Lichfield, who was 
acquainted both with Smith and Ducket ; and 
declared, that, if the tale concerning Clarendon 
were forged, he should suspect Ducket of the 
falsehood ; for Rag was a man of great ve- 
racity. 

Of Gilbert Walmsley, thus presented to my 
mind, let me indulge myself in the remem- 
brance. I knew him very early ; he was one 
of the first friends that literature procured me, 
and I hope that at least my gratitude made me 
worthy of his notice. 

He was of an advanced age, and I was only 
not a boy ; yet he never received my notions 
with contempt. He was a whig, with all the 
virulence and malevolence of his party; yet dif- 
ference of opinion did not keep us apart. J 
honoured him, and he endured me. 

He had mingled with the gay world, without 

exemption from its vices or its follies, but had 

never neglected the cultivation of his mind ; his 

belief of revelation was unshaken; his lear&~ 

T 



142 



DUKE. 



ing preserved his principles ; he grew first re- 
gular, and then pious. 

His studies had been so various, that I am 
not able to name a man of equal knowledge. 
His acquaintance with books was great; and 
what he did not immediately know, he could at 
least tell where to find. Such was his ampli- 
tude of learning, and such his copiousness of 
communication, that it may be doubted, whe- 
ther a day now passes in which I have not some 
advantage from his friendship. 

At this man's table I enjoyed many cheerful 
and instructive hours, with companions such as 
are not often found ; with one who has length- 
ened and one who has gladdened life ; with Dr. 
James, whose skill in physic will be long re- 
membered, and with David Garrick, whom I 
hoped to have gratified with this character of 
our common friend : but what are the hopes of 
man ! I am disappointed by that stroke of death 
which has eclipsed the gayety of nations, and 
impoverished the public stock of harmless plea- 
sure. 

In the Library at Oxford is the following lu- 
dicrous Analysis of Pocockius : 

EX AUTOGRAPHO. 

(Sent by the Author to Mr. Urry.) 
Opusculum hoc, Halberdarie amplissime, in 
lucem proferre hactenus distuli, judicii tui acu- 
men subveritus magis quam bipennis. Tandem 



aliquando oden hanc ad te mitto sublimem, te- 
neram, flebilem, suavem, qualem demum divi* 
nus (si Musis vacaret) scripsisset Gastrellus: 
adeo scilicet sublimem ut inter legendum dor- 
mire, adeo flebilem ut ridere velis. Cujus ele- 
gantiam ut melius inspicias, versuum ordinem 
et materiam breviter referam. lmus. versus de 
duobus prseliis decantatis. 2dus. et 3us. de Lo- 
tharingio, cuniculis subterraneis, saxis, ponto, 
hostibus, et Asia. 4tus. et 5tus. de catenis, 
subdibus, uncis, draconibus, tigribus, et croco- 
dilis. 6us. 7us. 8us. 9us. de Gomorrha, de 
Babylone, Babele, et quodam domi suae pere- 
grine lOus. aliquid de quodam Pocockio. 
llus. 12us. de Syria, Solyma. lSus. 14us. de 
Hosea, et quercu, et de juvene quodam valde 
sene. 15us. 16us. de JEtna, et quomodo iEtna 
Pocockio fit valde similis. J7us. 18us. de tuba, 
astro, umbra, flammis, rotis, Pocockio non neg- 
lecto. Csetera de Christianis, Ottomanis, Baby- 
loniis, Arabibus, et gravissima agrorum melan- 
cholia ; de Ceesare Flacco,* Nestore, et miser- 
ando juvenis cujusdam florentissimi fato, anno 
setatis suae centesimo premature abrepti. Quae 
omnia cum accurate expenderis, necesse est ut 
oden hanc raeam admiranda. plane varietate 
constare fatearis. Subitoad Batavosproficiscor, 
lauro ab illis donandus. Prius vero Pembro- 
chienses voco ad certamen Poeticum. Vale. 
Illustrissima tua deosculor crura. 

E. SMITH. 



DUK E. 



Or Mr. Richard Duke I can find few me- 
morials. He was bred at Westminster* and 
Cambridge; and Jacob relates, that he was 
some time tutor to the Duke of Richmond. 

He appears from his writings to have been 
not ill qualified for poetical compositions ; and, 
being conscious of his powers, when he left the 
University, he enlisted himself among the wits. 
He was the familiar friend of Otway ; and was 
engaged, among other popular names, in the 
translations of Ovid and Juvenal. In his " Re- 
view," though unfinished, are some vigorous 
i-ines. His poems are not below mediocrity ; 
nor have I found much in them to be praised. f 



* He was admitted there in 1670 ; was elected to 
Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1675; and took bis 
master's degree in 1682. — N. 

t They make a part of a volume pubhshed by Ton- 
bon in 8vo. 1717, containing the poems of the Earl of 



With the wit he seems to have shared the dis- 
soluteness of the times ; for some of his com- 
positions are such as he must have reviewed 
with detestation in his later days, when he 
published those Sermons which Felton has 
commended. 

Perhaps, like some other foolish young men, 
he rather talked than lived viciously, in an age 
when he that would be thought a wit was 
afraid to say his prayers ; and, whatever might 
have been bad in the first part of his life, was 
surely condemned arid reformed by his better 
judgment. 



Roscommon, and the Duke of Buckingham's Essay 
on Poetry; but were first pubhshed in Dryden's 
Miscellany, as were most, if not all, of the poema 
in that collection. — H. 

* Pro Flacco, animo paulo attentiore, scripsisfcem 
Marone. 



KING. 



US 



In 1683, being then master of arts and fellow 
of Trinity College, in Cambridge, he wrote a 
poem on the marriage of the Lady Anne with 
George, Prince of Denmark. 

He then took orders ;* and, being made pre- 
bendary of Gloucester, became a proctor in con- 
vocation for that church, and chaplain to Queen 
Anne. 



In 1710, he was presented by the Bishop of 
Winchester to the wealthy living of Witney, in 
Oxfordshire, which he enjoyed but a few 
months. On February 10, 1710-11, having re- 
turned from an entertainment, he was found 
dead the next morning. His death is mention- 
ed in Swift's Journal. 



KING. 



William King was born in London, in 1663 ; 
the son of Ezekiel King, a gentleman. He 
was allied to the family of Clarendon. 

From Westminster-school, where he was a 
scholar on the foundation under the care of Dr. 
Busby, he was at eighteen elected to Christ- 
church, in 1681 ; where he is said to have pro- 
secuted his studies with so much intenseness 
and activity, that before he was eight years 
standing he had read over, and made remarks 
upon, twenty-two thousand odd hundred books 
and manuscripts. f The books were certainly 
not very long, the manuscripts not very diffi- 
cult, nor the remarks very large ; for the calcu- 
lator will find that he despatched seven a day 
for every day of his eight years ; with a rem- 
nant that more than satisfies most other stu- 
dents. He took his degree in the most expen- 
sive manner, as a grand compounder ; whence 
it is inferred that he inherited a considerable 
fortune. 

In 1688, the same year in which he was^made 
master of arts, he published a confutation of 
Varillas's account of Wickliffe; and engaging 
in the study of the civil law, became doctor in 
1692, and was admitted advocate at Doctors 
Commons. 

He had already made some translations from 
the French, and written some humorous and 
satirical pieces ; when, in 1694, Molesworth 
published his " Account of Denmark," in 
which he treats the Danes and their monarch 
with great contempt ; and takes the opportunity 
of insinuating those wild principles, by which 
he supposes liberty to be established, and by 
which his adversaries suspect that all subordi- 
nation and government is endangered. 

* He was presented to the rectory of Blaby, in 
Leicestershire, in 1687-8 ; and obtained a prebend at 
Gloucester, in 1688. — N. 

f This appears by his " Adversaria," printed in 
hia works, edit. 1776, 3 yoIs.— C. 



This bock offended Prince George ; and the 
Danish minister presented a memorial against 
it. The principles of its author did not please 
Dr. King ; and therefore he undertook to con- 
fute part, and laugh at the rest. The contro- 
versy is now forgotten ; and books of this kind 
seldom live long, when interest and resentment 
have ceased. 

In 1697, he mingled in the controversy be- 
tween Boyle and Bentley ; and was one of those 
who tried what wit could perform in opposition 
to learning, on a question which learning only 
could decide. 

In 1699, was published by him " A Journey 
to London," after the method of Dr. Martin 
Lister, who had published " A Journey to Pa- 
ris." And, in 1700, he satirized the Royal So- 
ciety, at least Sir Hans Sloane, their presi- 
dent, in two dialogues, entitled " The Trans- 
actioner." 

Though he was a regular advocate in the 
courts of civil and canon law, he did not love 
his profession, nor indeed any kind of business 
which interrupted his voluntary dreams, or 
forced him to rouse from that indulgence in 
which only he could find delight. His reputa- 
tion as a civilian was yet maintained by his 
judgments in the courts of delegates, and raised 
very high by the address and knowledge which 
he discovered in 1700, when he defended the 
Earl of Anglesea against his lady, afterwards 
Dutchess of Buckinghamshire, who sued for a 
divorce, and obtained it. 

The expense of his pleasures and neglect of 
business had now lessened his revenues ; and he 
was willing to accept of a settlement in Ireland, 
where, about 1702, he was made judge of the 
Admiralty, commissioner of the prizes, keeper 
of the records in Birmingham's tower, and vi- 
car-general to Dr. Marsh, the primate. 

But it is vain to put wealth within the reach 
of him who will not stretch out his hand to 
take it. King soon found a friend, as idle and 



144 



SPRAT. 



thoughtless as himself, in Upton, one of the 
judges, who had a pleasant house called Moun- 
town near Dublin, to which King frequently 
retired ; delighting to neglect his interest, for- 
get his cares, and desert his duty. 

Here he wrote " Mully of Mountown," a 
poem ; hy which, though fanciful readers in the 
pride of sagacity have given it a political inter- 
pretation, was meant originally no more than it 
expressed, as it was dictated only by the Author's 
delight in the quiet of Mountown. 

In 1708, when Lord Wharton was sent to 
govern Ireland, King returned to London with 
his poverty, his idleness, and his wit, and pub- 
lished some essays, called " Useful Transac- 
tions." His " Voyage to the Island of Caja- 
mai" is particularly commended. He then 
wrote " The Art of Love," a poem remark- 
able, notwithstanding its title, for purity of 
sentiment; and in 1709 imitated Horace in an 
" Art of Cookery." which he published, with 
some letters to Dr. Lister. 

In 1710, he appeared as a lover of the church, 
on the side of Sacheverell ; and was supposed to 
have concurred at least in the projection of 
" The Examiner." His eyes were open to all 
the operations of whiggism ; and he bestowed 
some strictures upon Dr. Kennet's adulatory 
sermon at the funeral of the Duke of Devonshire. 

" The History of the Heathen Gods," a book 
■composed for schools, was written by him in 
1710. The work is useful, but might have been 
produced without the powers of King. The 
next year, he published " Rufinus," an histori- 
cal essay ; and a poem, intended to dispose the 
nation to think as he thought of the Duke of 
Marlborough and his adherents. 



In 1711, competence, if not plenty, was again 
put into his power. He was, without the trouble 
of attendance, or the mortification of a request, 
made gazetteer. Swift, Freind, Prior, and 
other men of the same party, brought him the 
key of the gazeteer's office. He was now again 
placed in a profitable employment, and again 
threw the benefit away. An act of insolvency 
made his business at that time particularly 
troublesome ; and he would not wait till hurry 
should be at an end, but impatiently resigned it, 
and returned to his wonted indigence and a- 
musements. 

One of his amusements at Lambeth, where 
he resided, was to mortify Dr. Tenison, the 
archbishop, by a public festivity on the surrend- 
er of Dunkirk to Hill ; an event with which 
Tenison's political bigotry did not suffer him to 
be delighted. King was resolved to counter- 
act his sullenness, and at the expense of a few 
barrels of ale filled the neighbourhood with hon- 
est merriment. 

In the autumn of 1712, his health declined ; 
he grew weaker by degrees, and died on Christ- 
mas-day. Though his life had not been with- 
out irregularity, his principles were pure and 
orthodox, and his death was pious. 

After this relation, it will be naturally sup- 
posed that his poems were rather the amuse- 
ments of idleness than the efforts of study ; that 
he endeavoured rather to divert than astonish ; 
that his thoughts seldom aspired to sublimity : 
and that, if his verse was easy and his images 
familiar, he attained what he desired. His 
purpose is to be merry ; but, perhaps, to enjoy 
his mirth, it may be sometimes necessary to 
think well of his opinions. * 



SPRAT. 



Thomas Sprat was born in 1636, at Tallaton, 
in Devonshire, the son of a clergyman ; and , 
having been educated, as he tells of himself, not 
at Westminster or Eton, but at a little school 
by the church-yard side, became a commoner of 
Wadham College, in Oxford, in 1651 ; and, be- 
ing chosen scholar next year, proceeded through 
the usual academical course ; and, in 1657, be- 
came master of arts. He obtained a fellowship, 
and commenced poet. 

In 1659, his poem on the death gf Oliver was 
published, with those of Dryden and Waller. 
In his dedication to Dr. Wilkins, he appears a 
very willing and liberal encomiast, both of the 



living and the dead. He implores his patron's 
excuse of his verses, both as falling " so infi- 
nitely below the full and sublime genius of that 
excellent poet who made this way of writing 
free of our nation," and being " so little equal 
and proportioned to the renown of a prince on 
whom they were written ; such great actions 



* Dr. Johnson appears to have made but little use 
of the Life of Dr. King, prefixed to his " Works, in 
3 vols." 1776, to which it may not be impertinent to 
refer the reader. His talent for humour ought to he 
praised in the highest terms. In that at least he 
yielded to none of his contemporaries.— C. 



SPRAT. 



145 



and lives deserving to be the subject of the no- 
blest pens and most Divine phansies." He 
proceeds ; " Having so long experienced your 
care and indulgence, and been formed as it 
were, by your own hands, not to entitle you to 
any thing which my meanness produces would 
be not only injustice, but sacrilege." 

He published, the same year, a poem on the 
" Plague of Athens ;" a subject of which, it is 
not easy to say what could recommend it. To 
these he added afterwards a poem on Mr. Cow- 
ley's death. 

After the Restoration he took orders, and by 
Cowley's recommendation was made chaplain 
to the Duke of Buckingham, whom he is said 
to have helped in writing " The Rehearsal." 
He was likewise .chaplain to the King. 

As he was the favourite of Wilkins, at whose 
house began those philosophical conferences and 
inquiries which in time produced the Royal So- 
ciety, he was consequently engaged in the same 
studies, and became one of the fellows; and 
when, after their incorporation, something 
seemed necessary to reconcile the public to the 
new institution, he undertook to write its his- 
tory, which he published in 1667. This is one 
of the few books which selection of sentiment 
and elegance of diction have been able to pre- 
serve, though written upon a subject flux and 
transitory. " The history of the Royal So- 
ciety," is now read, not with the wish to know 
what they were then doing, but how their trans- 
actions are exhibited by Sprat. 

In the next year he published " Observations 
on Sorbiere's Voyage into England, in a Letter 
to Mr. Wren." This is a work not ill per- 
formed ; but perhaps rewarded with at least its 
full proportion of praise. 

In 1668, he published Cowley's Latin poems, 
and prefixed in Latin the Life of the Author, 
which he afterwards amplified, and placed be- 
fore Cowley's English works, which were by 
will committed to his care. 

Ecclesiastical benefices now fell fast upon 
him. In 1668, he became a prebendary of West- 
minster, and had afterwards the church of St. 
Margaret, adjoining to the Abbey. He was, 
in 1680, made canon of Windsor; in 1683, dean 
of Westminster ; and in 1684, bishop of Ro- 
chester. 

The court having thus a claim to his diligence 
and gratitude, he was required to write the his- 
tory of the Rye-house Plot ; and in 1685, pub- 
lished " A true Account and Declaration of the 
horrid Conspiracy against the late King, his 
present Majesty, and the present Government ;" 
a performance which he thought convenient, 
after the Revolution, to extenuate and excuse. 

The same year, being clerk of the closet to the 
King, he was made dean of the chapel-royal ; 
and, the year afterwards, received the last proof 
of his master's confidence, by being appointed 



one of the commissioners for ecclesiastical affairs. 
On the critical day when the Declaration dis- 
tinguished the true sons of the church of Eng- 
land, he stood neuter, and permitted it to be 
read at Westminster ; but pressed none to vio- 
late his conscience ; and when the Bishop of 
London was brought before them, gave his voice 
in his favour. 

Thus far he suffered interest or obedience to 
carry him ; but further he refused to go. When 
he found that the powers of the ecclesiastical 
commission were to be exercised against those 
Avho had refused the Declaration, he wrote to 
the lords, and other commissioners, a formal 
profession of his unwillingness to exercise that 
authority any longer, and withdrew himself 
from them. After they had read his letter, they 
adjourned for six months, and scarcely ever met 
afterwards. 

When King James was frighted away, and a 
new government was to be settled, Sprat was 
one of those who considered, in a conference, 
the great question, whether the crown was va- 
cant, and manfully spoke in favour of his old 
master. 

He complied, however, with the new estab- 
lishment, and was left unmolested ; but, in 1692, 
a strange attack was made upon him by one 
Robert Young and Stephen Blackhead, both 
men convicted of infamous crimes, and both, 
when the scheme was laid, prisoners in New- 
gate. These men drew up an association, in 
which they whose names were subscribed de- 
clared their resolution to restore King James, 
to seize the Princess of Orange, dead or alive, 
and to be ready with thirty thousand men, to 
meet King James when he should land. To 
this they put the names of Sancroft, Sprat, Marl- 
borough, Salisbury, and others. The copy of 
Dr. Sprat's name was obtained by a fictitious re- 
quest, to which an answer in his own hand was 
desired. His hand was copied so well, that he 
confessed it might have deceived himself. Black- 
head, who had carried the letter, being sent 
again with a plausible message, was very curi- 
ous to see the house, and particularly importu- 
nate to be let into the study ; where, as is sup- 
posed, he designed to leave the association. 
This, however, was denied him ; and he drop- 
ped it in a flower-pot in the parlour. 

Young now laid an information before the 
privy-council; and, May 7, 1692, the Bishop 
was arrested, and kept at a messenger's under a 
strict guard eleven days. His house was search- 
ed, and directions were given that the flower- 
pots should be inspected. The messengers, how- 
ever, missed the room in which the paper was 
left. Blackhead went therefore a third time; 
and, finding his paper where he had left it, 
brought it away. 

The Bishop, having been enlarged, was, on 
June the 10th and 13th, examined again before 



146 



HALIFAX. 



die privy-council, and confronted with his ac- 
cusers. Young persisted with the most obdu- 
rate impudence, against the strongest evidence ; 
but the resolution of Blackhead by degrees gave 
way. There remained at last no do ubt of the 
Bishop's innocence, who, with great prudence 
and diligence, traced the progress and detected 
the characters of the two informers, and pub- 
lished an account of his own examination and 
deliverance ; which made such an impression 
upon him, that he commemorated it through life 
by a yearly day of thanksgiving. 

With what hope, or what interest, the vil- 
lains had contrived an accusation which they 
must know themselves utterly unable to prove, 
was never discovered. 

After this, he passed his days in the quiet ex- 
ercise of his function. When the cause of Sa- 
cheverell put the public in commotion, he hon- 
estly appeared among the friends of the church. 
He lived to his seventy-ninth year, and died 
May 20, 1713. 

Burnet is not very favourable to his memory; 
but he and Burnet were old rivals. On some 
public occasion they both preached before the 
House of Commons. There prevailed in those 
days an indecent custom : when the preacher 
touched any favourable topic in a manner that 
delighted his audience, their approbation was 
expressed by a loud hum, continued in proportion 
to their zeal or pleasure. When Burnet preach- 
ed, part of his congregation hummed so loudly 
and so long, that he sat down to enjoy it, and 
rubbed his face with his handkerchief. When 



Sprat preached, be likewise was honoured with 
the like animating hum ; but he stretched out 
his hand to the congregation, and cried, '* Peace, 
peace, I pray you peace." 

This I was told in my youth by my father, 
an old man, who had been no careless observer 
of the passages of those times. 

Burnet's sermon, says Salmon, was remark- 
able for sedition, and Sprat's for loyalty. Bur- 
net had the thanks of the house ; Sprat had no 
thanks, but a good living from the King, which, 
he said, was of as much value as the thanks of 
the Commons. 

The wsrks of Sprat, besides his few poems, 
are, " The History of the Royal Society," 
" The Life of Cowley," " The Answer to Sor- 
biere," " The History of the Rye-house Plot," 
" The Relation of his own Examination," and 
a volume of sermons. I have heard it observed, 
with great justness, that every book is of a dif- 
ferent kind, and that each has its distinct and 
characteristical excellence. 

My business is only with his poems. He 
considered Cowley as a model ; and supposed 
that, as he was imitated, perfection was ap- 
proached. Nothing, therefore, but Pindaric li- 
berty was to be expected. There is in his few 
productions no want of such conceits as he 
thought excellent : and of those our judgment 
may be settled by the first that appears in his 
praise of Cromwell, where he says, that Crom- 
well's " fame, like man, will grow white as it 
grows old." 



HALIFAXe 



The Life of the Earl of Halifax was proper- 
ly that of an artful and active statesman, em- 
ployed in balancing parties, contriving expedi- 
ents, and combating opposition, and exposed to 
the vicissitudes of advancement and degrada- 
tion; but in this collection, poetical merit is the 
claim to attention : and the account which is 
here to be expected may properly be proportion- 
ed not to his influence in the state, but to his 
rank among the writers of verse. 

Charles Montague was born April 16, 
1661, at Horton, in Northamptonshire, the son 
of Mr. George Montague, a younger son of the 
Earl of Manchester. He was educated first in 
the country, and then removed to Westminster, 
where, in J 677. he was chosen a king's scholar, 



and recommended himself to Busby by his feli- 
city in extemporary epigrams. He contracted 
a very intimate friendship with Mr. Stepney ; 
and, in 1682, when Stepney was elected at 
Cambridge, the election of Montague being nut 
to proceed till the year following, he was afraid 
lest by being placed at Oxford he might be se- 
parated from his companion, and therefore so- 
licited to be removed to Cambridge, without 
waiting for the advantages of another year. 

It seems indeed time to wish for a removal ; 
for he was already a school-boy of one-and- 
twenty. 

His relation, Dr. Montague, was then master 
of the college in which he was placed a fellow- 
commcncr, and took him under his particulai 
care. litre he commenced an acouaintance 



HALIFAX. 



147 



with the great Newton, which continued 
through his life, and was at last attested by a 
legacy. 

In 1685, his verses on the death of King 
Charles made such an impression on the Earl 
of Dorset, that he was invited to town, and in- 
troduced by that universal patron to the other 
wits. In 1687, he joined with Prior in " The 
City Mouse and the Country Mouse," a bur- 
lesque of Dryden's " Hind and Panther." He 
signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, 
and sate in the convention. He about the same 
time married the Countess Dowager of Man- 
chester, and intended to have taken orders ; but 
afterwards, altering his purpose, he purchased 
for l,b00l. the place of one of the clerks of the 
council. 

After he had written his epistle on the victory 
of the Boyne, his patron, Dorset, introduced 
him to King William, with this expression : 
— " Sir, I have brought a mouse to wait on your 
Majesty." To which the King is said to have 
replied, " You do well to put me in the way of 
making a man of him j" and ordered him a pen- 
sion of five hundred pounds. This story, how- 
ever current, seems to have been made after the 
event. The King's answer implies a greater 
acquaintance with our proverbial and familiar 
diction than King William could possibly have 
attained. 

In 1691, being member of the House of Com- 
mons, he argued warmly in favour of a law to 
grant the assistance of counsel in trials for high 
treason ; and, in the midst of his speech falling 
into some confusion, was for awhile silent; but, 
recovering himself, observed, " how reasonable 
it was to allow counsel to men called as crimi- 
nals before a court of justice, when it appeared 
how much the presence of that assembly could 
disconcert one of their own body."* 

After this he rose fast into honours and em- 
ployments, being made one of the commissioners 
of the Treasury, and called to the privy- council. 
In 1694, he became chancellor of the Exchequer ; 
and the next year engaged in the great attempt 
of the recoinage, which was in two years hap- 
pily completed. In 1696, he projected the ge- 
neral fund, and raised the credit of the Ex- 



* Mr. Reed observes that this anecdote is related 
oy Mr. Walpole, in his " Catalogue of Royal and 
Noble Authors," of the Earl of Shaftesbury, author 
of the " Characteristics ;" but it appears to me to 
be a mistake, if we are to understand that the words 
were spoken by Shaftesbury at this time, when he 
had no seat in the House of Commons ; nor did t!:e 
bill pass at this time, being thrown out by the Hcu e 
of Lords. It became a law in the 7th TV illiam, when 
Halifax and Shaftesbury both had seats. The edi- 
tors of the " Biographia Britannica" adopt Mr. 
Walpole's story, but they are not speaking of this 
period. The story first appeared in the Life of 
uord Halifax, published in 1715.— C. 



chequer; and, after inquiry concerning a grant 
of Irish crown-lands, it was determined by a 
vote of the Commons, that Charles Montague, 
Esq. had deserved his Majesty's favour. In 
1698, being advanced to the first commission of 
the Treasury, he was appointed one of the re- 
gency in the King's absence : the next year he 
was made auditor of the Exchequer, and the 
year after created Baron Halifax. He was, 
however, impeached by the Commons ; but the 
articles were dismissed by the Lords. 

At the accession of Queen Anne he was dis- 
missed from the council : and in the first parlia- 
ment of her reign was again attacked by the 
Commons, and again escaped by the protection 
of the Lords. In 1704, he wrote an answer to 
Broomley's speech against occasional conform- 
ity. He headed the inquiry into the danger of 
the church. In 1706, he proposed and negoti- 
ated the Union of Scotland; and when the 
Elector of Hanover had received the garter, af- 
ter the act had passed for securing the protestant 
succession, he was appointed to carry the en- 
signs of the order to the electoral court. He 
sate as one of the judges of Sacheverell ; but 
voted for a mild sentence. Being now no long- 
er in favour, he contrived to obtain a writ for 
summoning the Electoral Prince to parliament 
as Duke of Cambridge. 

At the Queen's death he was appointed one 
of the regents ; and at the accession of George 
I. was made earl of Halifax, knight of the gar- 
ter, and first commissioner of the treasury, with 
a grant to his nephew of the reversion of the 
auditorship of the Exchequer. More was not 
to be had, and this he kept but a little while ; 
for, on the 19th of May, 1715, he died of an in- 
flammation of his lungs. 

Of him, who from a poet became a patron of 
poets, it will be readily believed that the works 
would not miss of celebration. Addison began 
to praise him early, and was followed or accom- 
panied by other poets : perhaps by almost all, 
except Swift and Pope, who forebore to flat- 
ter him in his life, and after his death spoke 
of him, Swift with slight censure, and Pope, 
in the character of Bufo, with acrimonious 
contempt. 

He was, as Pope says, " fed with dedica- 
tions;" for Tickell affirms that no dedication 
was unrewarded. To charge all unmerited 
praise with the guilt' of flattery, and to suppose 
that the encomiast always knows and feels the 
falsehoods of his assertions, is surely to discover 
great ignorance of human nature and human 
life. In determinations depending not on rules, 
hut on experience and comparison, judgment 
is always, in some degree, subject to affection. 
Very near to admiration is the wish to admire. 

Every man willingly gives value to the praise 
which he receives, and considers the sentence 
passed in his favour as the sentence of discern- 



148 



P A R N E L L. 



ment. We admire in a friend that understand- 
ing which selected us for confidence ; we ad- 
mire more, in a patron, that judgment which, 
instead of scattering hounty indiscriminately, 
directed it to us ; and, if the patron he an au- 
thor, those performances which gratitude forhids 
us to hlame, affection will easily dispose us to 
exalt. 

To these prejudices, hardly culpable, interest 
adds a power always operating, though not al- 
ways, because not willingly, perceived. The 
modesty of praise wears gradually away ; and 



perhaps the pride of patronage may he in time 
so increased, that modest praise will no longer 
please. + 

Many a blandishment was practised upon 
Halifax, which he would never have known, 
had he no other attractions than those of his 
poetry, of which a short time has withered the 
beauties. It would now be esteemed no honour, 
by a contributor to the monthly bundles of 
verses, to be told, that in strains either familiar 
or solemn, he sings like Montague. 



PARNELL 



The Life of Dr. Parnell is a task which I 
should very willingly decline, since it has been 
lately written by Goldsmith, a man of such 
variety of powers, and such felicity of perform- 
ance, that he always seemed to do best that 
which he was doing ; a man who had the art of 
being minute without tediousness, and general 
without confusion ; whose language was copious 
without exuberance ; exact without constraint, 
and easy without weakness. 

What such an author has told, who would 
tell again ? I have made an abstract from his 
larger narrative ; and have this gratification 
from my attempt, that it gives me an oppor- 
tunity of paying due tribute to the memory of 
Goldsmith. 

To ya.^ yiga-i iitti ^-c.voi/tojv. 

Thomas Parnell was the son of a common- 
wealth sman of the same name, who, at the Re- 
storation, left Congleton, in Cheshire, where 
the family had been established for several cen- 
turies, and settling in Ireland, purchased an 
estate, which, with his lands in Cheshire, des- 
cended to the poet, who was born in Dublin, 
in 1679 ; and, after the usual education at & 
grammar-school, was, at the age of thirteen, 
admitted into the College, where, in 1700, he 
became master of arts ; and was the same year 
ordained a deacon, though under the canoni- 
cal age, by a dispensation from the Bishop of 
Derry. 

About three years afterwards he was made a 
priest ; and in 1705, Dr. Ashe, the bishop of 
Clogher, conferred upon him the archdeaconry 
of Clogher. About the same year he married 
Mrs. Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, by whom 
he had two sons, who died young, and a daugh- 
ter who long survived him. 



At the ejection of the whigs, in the end of 
Queen Anne's reign, Parnell was persuaded to 
change his party, not without much censure 
from those whom he forsook, and was received 
by the new ministry as a valuable reinforce- 
ment. When the Earl of Oxford was told that 
Dr. Parnell waited among the crowd in the 
outer room, he went, by the persuasion of 
Swift, with his treasurer's staff in his hand, to 
inquire for him, and to hid him welcome; and, 
as may be inferred from Pope's dedication, ad- 
mitted him as a favourite companion to his con- 
vivial hours ; but, as it seems often to have hap- 
pened in those times to the favourites of the 
great, without attention to his fortune, which, 
however, was in no great need of improve- 
ment. 

Parnell, who did not want ambition or van- 
ity, was desirous to make himself conspicuous, 
and to show how worthy he was of high pre- 
ferment. As he thought himself qualified to 
become a popular preacher, he displayed his elo- 
cution with great success in the pulpits of Lon- 
don ; but the Queen's death putting an end to 
his expectations, abated his diligence ; and Pope 
represents him as falling from that time into 
intemperance of wine. That in his latter life 
he was too much a lover of the bottle, is not 
denied ; but I have heard it imputed to a cause 
more likely to obtain forgiveness from mankind 
— the untimely death of a darling son ; or, as 
others tell, the loss of his wife, who died (1712) 
in the midst of his expectations. 

He was now to derive every future addition 
to his preferments from his personal interest 
with his private friends, and he was not long 
unregarded. He was warmly recommended by 
Swift to Archbishop King, who gave him a 
prebend in 1713; and in May, 1716, presented 



GARTH. 



149 



him to the vicarage of Finglass, in the diocese 
of Dublin, worth four hundred pounds a year. 
Such notice, from such a man, inclines me to 
believe, that the vice of which he has been ac- 
cused was not gross, or not notorious. 

But his prosperity did not last long. His end, 
whatever was its cause, was now approaching. 
He enjoyed his preferment little more than a 
year; for in July, 1717, in his thirty-eighth 
year, he died at Chester, on his way to Ireland. 

He seems to have been one of those poets who 
take delight in writing. He contributed to the 
papers of that time, and probably published 
more than he owned. He left many composi- 
tions behind him, of which Pope selected those 
which he thought best, and dedicated them to 
the Earl of Oxford. Of these Goldsmith has 
given an opinion, and his criticism it is seldom 
safe to contradict. He bestows just praise up- 
on " The Rise of Woman," " The Fairy Tale," 
and " The Pervigilium Veneris;" but has very 
properly remarked, that in " The Battle of 
Mice and Frogs," tbe Greek names have not 
in English their original effect. 

He tells us, that " The Book-Worm" is bor- 
rowed from Beza ; but he should have added, 
with modern applications : and, when he dis- 
covers that " Gay Bacchus" is translated from 
Augurellus, he ought to have remarked that 
the latter part is purely Parnell's. Another 
poem, " When Spring comes on," is, he says, 
taken from the French. I would add, that the 
description of barrenness, in his verses to Pope, 
was borrowed from Secundus : but, lately- 
searching for the passage, which I had formerly 



read, I could not find it. The " Night-piece 
on Death" is indirectly preferred by Goldsmith 
to Gray's " Church-Yard:" but, in my opin- 
ion, Gray has the advantage of dignity, variety, 
and originality of sentiment. He observes, 
that the story of the " Hermit" is in More's 
" Dialogues" and Howell's " Letters," and 
supposes it to have been originally Arabian. 
■ Goldsmith has not taken any notice of the 
" Elegy to the old Beauty," which is perhaps 
the meanest; nor of the " Allegory on Man," 
the happiest of Parnell's performances ; the hint 
of the " Hymn to Contentment" I suspect to 
have been borrowed from Cleiveland. 

The general character of Parnell, is not great 
extent of comprehension, or fertility of mind. 
Of the little that appears still less is his own. 
His praise must be derived from the easy 
sweetness of his diction : in his verses there is 
more happiness than pains; he is sprightly 
without effort, and always delights, though he 
never ravishes ; every thing is proper, yet every 
thing seems casual. If there is some appear- 
ance of elaboration in the " Hermit," the nar- 
rative, as it is less* airy, is less pleasing. Of 
his other compositions it is impossible to say 
whether they are the productions of nature, so 
excellent as not to want the help of art or of 
art so refined as to resemble nature. 

This criticism relates only to the pieces pub- 
lished by Pope. Of the large appendages, which 
I find in the last edition, I can only say, that I 
know not whence they came, nor have ever in- 
quired whither they are going. They stand 
upon the faith of the compilers. 



GARTH. 



Samuel Garth was of a good family in York- 
shire, and from some school in his own country 
became a student at Peterhouse, in Cambridge, 
where he resided till he became doctor of physic 
on July 7th, 1691. He was examined before 
the College, at London, on March the 12th, 
1691-2, and admitted fellow June 26th, 1693. 
He was soon so much distinguished by his con- 
versation and accomplishments, as to obtain very 
extensive practice ; and, if a pamphlet of those 
times may be credited, had the favour and 
confidence of one party, as Radcliffe had of 
the other. 

He is always mentioned as a man of bene- 
volence; and it is just to suppose that his desire 
of helping the helpless disposed him to so much 



zeal for the Dispensary; an undertaking, of 
which some account, however short, is proper 
to be given. 

Whether what Temple says be true, that 
physicians have had more learning than the 
other faculties, I will not stay to inquire ; but, 
I believe, every man has found in physicians 
great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very 
prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness 
to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope 
of lucre. Agreeably to this character, the Col' 
lege of Physicians, in July, 1687, published an 
edict, requiring all the fellows, candidates, and 



* Dr. Warton ask^ " less than what?' 

u 



-E. 



150 



GART H. 



licentiates, to give gratuitous advice to the 
neighbouring poor. 

This edict was sent to the coui't of aldermen ; 
and, a question being made to whom the appel- 
lation of the poor should be extended, the Col- 
lege answered, that it should be sufficient to 
bring a testimonial from the clergyman officiat- 
ing in the parish where the patient resided. 

After a year's experience, the physicians found 
their charity frustrated by some malignant op- 
position, and made, to a great degree, vain by 
the high price of physic ; they therefore voted, 
in August, 1688, that the laboratory of the Col- 
lege should be accommodated to the preparation 
of medicines, and another room prepared for 
their reception; and that the contributors to 
the expense should manage the charity. 

It was now expected, that the apothecaries 
would have undertaken the care of provid- 
ing medicines; but they took another course. 
Thinking the whole design pernicious to their 
interest, they endeavoured to raise a faction 
against it in the College, and found some phy- 
sicians mean enough to solicit their patronage, 
by betraying to them the counsels of the Col- 
lege. The greater part, however, enforced by 
a new edict, in 1694, the former order of 1687, 
and sent it to the mayor and aldermen, who ap- 
pointed a committee to treat with the Col- 
lege, and settle the mode of administering the 
charity. 

It was desired by the aldermen, that the testi- 
monials of churchwardens and overseers should 
be admitted ; and that all hired servants, and all 
apprentices to handicraftsmen, should be con- 
sidered as poor. This likewise was granted by 
the College. 

It was then considered who should distribute 
the medicines, and who should settle their 
prices. The physicians procured some apothe- 
caries to undertake the dispensation, and offered 
that the warden and company of the apothe- 
caries should adjust the price. This offer was 
rejected ; and the apothecaries who had engaged 
to assist the charity were considered as traitors 
to the company, threatened with the imposition 
of troublesome offices, and deterred from the 
performance of their engagements. The apo- 
thecaries ventured upon public opposition, and 
presented a kind of remonstrance against the 
design to the committee of the city, which the 
physicians condescended to confute ; and at last 
the traders seem to have px'evailed among the 
sens of trade ; for the proposal of the College 
having been considered, a paper of approbation 
was drawn up, but postponed and forgotten. 

The pnysicians still persisted ; and in 1696 a 
subscription was raised by themselves, accord- 
ing to an agreement prefixed to the Dispensary. 
The poor were, for a time, supplied with medi- 
cines; for how long a time 1 know not. The 
medicinal charily, like others, began with ar- 



dour, but soon remitted, and at last died gradual- 
ly away. 

About the time of the subscription begins the 
action of " The Dispensary." The poem, as 
its subject was present and popular, co-operated 
with the passions and prejudices then prevalent, 
and with such auxiliaries to its intrinsic merit, 
was universally and liberally applauded. It 
was on the side of charity against the intrigues 
of interest, and of regular learning against li- 
centious usurpation of medical authority, and 
was therefore naturally favoured by those who 
read and can judge of poetry. 
_ In 1697, Garth spoke that which is now call- 
ed the Harveian Ox'ation ; which the authors of 
the " Biographia" mention with more praise 
than the passage quoted in their notes will fully 
justify. Garth, speaking of the mischiefs done 
by quacks, has these expressions : — " Non tamen 
telis vulnerat ista agyrtarum colluvies, sed the- 
riaca quadam magis perniciosa, non pyrio, sed 
pulvere nescio quo exotico certat, non globulis 
plumbeis, sed pilulis seque lethalibus interficit." 
This was certainly thought fine by the author, 
and is still admired by his biographer. In 
October, 1702, he became one of the censors of 
the College. 

Garth, being an active and zealous whig, was 
a member of the Kit-cat club, and, by conse- 
quence, familiarly known to all the great men 
of that denomination. In 1710, when the go- 
vernment fell into other hands, he writ to 
Lord Godolphin, on his dismission, a short 
poem, which, was criticised in the " Examiner," 
and so successfully either defended or excused 
by Mr. Addison, that, for the sake of the vindi- 
cation, it ought to be preserved. 

At the accession of the present family his 
merits were acknowledged and rewarded. He 
was knighted with the sword of his hero, Marl- 
borough ; and was made physician in ordinary 
to the King, and physician general to the army. 

He then undertook an edition of Ovid's 
" Metamorphoses," translated by several hands, 
which he recommended by a preface, written 
with more ostentation than ability : his notions 
are half-formed, and his materials unmethodi- 
cally confused. This was his last work. He 
died Jan. 18, 1717-18, and was buried at Har- 
row-on-the-hill. 

His personal character seems to have been 
social and liberal. He communicated himself 
through a very wide extent of acquaintance ; 
and though firm in a party, at a time when 
firmness included virulence, yet he imparted his 
kindness to those who were not supposed to 
favour his principles. He was an early encour- 
ager of Pope, and was at once the friend of Ad- 
dison and of Granville. He is accused of volup- 
tuousness and irreligion ; and Pope, who says, 
" that if ever there was a good Christian, with- 
out knowing himself to bs so, it was Dr. 



II O W E. 



151 



Garth," seems not able to deny what he is an- 
gry to hear, and loath to confess. 

Pope afterwards declared himself convinced, 
that Garth died in the communion of the 
church of Rome, having- been privately recon- 
ciled. It is observed by Lowth, that there is less 
distance than is thought between scepticism and 
popery : and that a mind, wearied with per- 
petual doubt," willingly seeks repose in the bosom 
of an infallible church. 

His poetry has been praised at least equally 
to its merit. In " The Dispensary" there is a 
strain of smooth and free versification ; but £ew 
lines are eminently elegant. No passages fall 
below mediocrity, and few rise much above it. 
The plan seems formed without just proportion 
to the subject ; the means and end have no ne- 
cessary connection. Resnel, in his preface to 
Pope's Essay, remarks, that Garth exhibits no 



discrimination of characters ; and that what 
any one says might, with equal propriety, have 
been said by another. The general design is, 
perhaps, open to criticism ; but the composition 
can seldom be charged with inaccuracy or neg- 
ligence. The Author never slumbers in self- 
indulgence ; his full vigour is always exerted; 
scarcely a line is left unfinished ; nor is it easy 
to find an expression used by constraint, or a 
thought imperfectly expressed. It was remark- 
ed by Pope, that " The Dispensary" had been 
corrected in every edition, and that every change 
was an improvement. It appears, however, to 
want something of poetical ardour, and some- 
thing of general delectation; and, therefore, 
since it has been no longer supported by acci- 
dental and intrinsic popularity, it has been 
scarcely able to support itself. 



RO WE. 



Nicholas Rowe was born at Little Beckford, 
in Bedfordshire, in 1673. His family had long 
possessed a considerable estate, with a good 
house, at Lambertoun, in Devonshire.* His 
ancestor, from whom he descended in a direct 
line, received the arms borne by his descendants 
for his bravery in the Holy War. His father, 
John Rowe, who was the first that quitted his 
paternal acres to practise any part of profit, pro- 
fessed the law, and published Benlow's and 
Dallison's " Reports" in the reign of James the 
Second, when in opposition to the notions, then 
diligently propagated, of dispensing power, he 
ventured to remark how low his authors rated 
the prerogative. He was made a serjeant, and 
died April 30, 1692. He was buried in the 
Temple church. 

Nicholas was first sent to a private school, at 
Highgate; and, being afterwards removed to 
Westminster, was, at twelve years,f chosen 
one of the King's scholars. His master was 
Busby, who suffered none of his scholars to let 
their powers lie useless ; and his exercises in 
several languages are said to have been written 
With uncommon degrees of excellence, and yet 
to have cost him very little labour. 

At sixteen he had in his father's opinion, 
made advances in learning sufficient to qualify 
him for the study of law, and was entered a 



* In the Viliare, Lamerton. — Orig. Edit. 

# He was not elected till 1088 — It. 



student of the Middle Temple, where for some 
time he read statutes and reports with profi- 
ciency proportionate to the force cf his mind, 
which was already such that he endeavoured to 
comprehend law, not as a series of precedents, 
or collection of positive precepts, but as a 
system of rational government, and impartial 
justice. 

When he was nineteen, he was, by the death 
of his father, left more to his own direction, and 
probably from that time suffered law gradually 
to give way to poetry. At twenty-five he pro- 
duced " The Ambitious Step- mother," which 
was received with so much favour, that he de- 
voted himself from that time wholly to elegant 
literature. 

His next tragedy (1702) was " Tamerlane," 
in which, under the name of Tamerlane, he in- 
tended to characterize King William, and Lewis 
the Fourteenth under Bajazet. The virtues of 
Tamerlane seem to have been aibitrarily as- 
signed him by his poet, for I know not that his- 
tory gives any other qualities than those which 
make a conqueror. The fashion, however, of 
the time was, to accumulate upon Lewis all that 
can raise horror and detestation ; and whatever 
good was withheld from him, that it might 
not be thrown away, was bestowed upon King 
William. 

This was the tragedy which Rowe valued 
most, and that which probably, by the help of 
political auxiliaries, excited most applause; but 



152 



ROWE. 



occasional poetry must often content itself with 
occasional praise. " Tamerlane" has for a long 
time been acted only once a year, on the night 
when King William landed. Our quarrel with 
Lewis has been long over; and it now gratifies 
neither zeal nor malice to see him painted 
with aggravated features, like a Saracen upon 
a sign. 

" The Fair Penitent," his next production 
(1703), is one of the most pleasing tragedies on 
the stage, where it still keeps its turns of ap- 
pearing, and probably will long keep them, for 
there is scarcely any work of any poet at once 
so interesting by the fable, and so delightful by 
the language. The story is domestic, and there- 
fore easily received by the imagination, and as- 
similated to common life; the diction is ex- 
quisitely harmonious, and soft or sprightly as 
occasion requires. 

The character of Lothario seems to have 
been expanded by Richardson into Lovelace; 
but he has excelled his original in the moral ef- 
fect of the fiction. Lothario, with gayety which 
cannot be hated, and bravery which cannot be 
despised, retains too much of the spectator's 
kindness. It was in the power of Richardson 
alone to teach us at once esteem and detestation, 
to make virtuous resentment overpower all the 
benevolence which wit, elegance, and courage, 
naturally excite ; and to lose at last the hero in 
the villain. 

The fifth act is not equal to the former ; the 
events of the drama are exhausted, and little re- 
mains but to talk of what is past. It has been 
observed, that the title of the play does not suf- 
ficiently correspond with the behaviour of Ca- 
lista, who at last shows no evident signs of re- 
pentance, but may be reasonably suspected of 
feeling pain from detection rather than from 
guilt, and expresses more shame than sorrow, 
and more rage than shame. 

His next (1706) was " Ulysses ;" which, with 
the common fate of mythological stories, is now 
generally neglected. We have been too early 
acquainted with the poetical heroes, to expect 
any pleasure from their revival ; to show them, 
as they have already been shown, is to disgust 
by repetition ; to give them new qualities, or 
new adventures, is to offend by violating re- 
ceived notions. 

" The Royal Convert" (1708) seems to have 
a better claim to longevity. The fable is drawn 
from an obscure and barbarous age, to which 
fictions are more easily and properly adapted ; 
for when objects are imperfectly seen, they 
easily take forms from imagination. The scene 
lies among our ancestors in our own country, 
and therefore very easily catches attention. Ro- 
dogune is a personage truly tragical, of high 
spirit, and violent passions, great with tem- 
pestuous dignity, and wicked with a soul that 
would have been heroic if it had been virtuous. 



The motto seems to tell, that this play was not 
successful. . 

Rowe does not always remember what his 
characters require. In " Tamerlane" there is 
some ridiculous mention of the God of Love ; 
and Rodogune, a savage Saxon, talks of Venus, 
and the eagle that bears the thunder of Jupiter. 

The play discovers its own date, by a predic- 
tion of the Union, in imitation of Cranmer's 
prophetic promises to Henry the Eighth. The 
anticipated blessings of union are not very na- 
turally introduced, nor very happily expressed. 

He once (1706) tried to change his hand. He 
ventured on a comedy, and produced " The 
Biter;" with which, though it was unfavourably 
treated by the audience, he was himself delight- 
ed; for he is said to have sate in the house 
laughing with great vehemence, whenever he 
had, in his own opinion, produced a jest. But, 
finding that he and the public had no sym- 
pathy of mirth, he tried at lighter scenes no 
more. 

After " The Royal Convert" (1714) appeared 
" Jane Shore," written, as its Author professes, 
in imitation of Shakspeare' s style. In what he 
thought himself an imitator of Shakspeare, it is 
not easy to conceive. The numbers, the diction, 
the sentiments, and the conduct, every thing in 
which imitation can consist, are remote in the 
utmost degree from the manner of Shakspeare, 
whose dramas it resembles only as it is an Eng- 
lish story, and as some of the persons have their 
names in history. This play, consisting chiefly 
of domestic scenes and private distress, lays 
hold upon the heart. The wife is forgiven 
because she repents, and the husband is hon- 
oured because he forgives. This, therefore, is 
one of those pieces which we still welcome on 
the stage. 

His last tragedy (1715) was " Lady Jane 
Gray." This subject had been chosen by Mr. 
Smith, whose papers were put into Rowe's 
hands such as he describes them in his preface. 
This play has likewise sunk into oblivion. 
From this time he gave nothing more to the 
stage. 

Being, by a competent fortune, exempted from 
any necessity of combating his inclination, he 
never wrote in distress, and therefore does not 
appear to have ever written in haste. His 
works were finished to his own approbation, 
and bear few marks of negligence or hurry. It 
is remarkable, that his prologues and epilogues 
are all his own, though he sometimes sup- 
plied others; he afforded help, but did not 
solicit it. 

As his studies necessarily made him acquaint- 
ed with Shakspeare, and acquaintance produced 
veneration, he undertook (1709) an edition of 
his works, from which he neither received much 
praise, nor seems to have expected it; yet, I 
believe, those who compare it with former 



ROWE. 



153 



copies will find that he has done more than he 
promised ; and that, without the pomp of notes 
or hoasts of criticism, many passages are hap- 
pily restored. He prefixed a life of the author, 
such as tradition, then almost expiring, could 
supply, and a preface ;* which cannot be said 
to discover much profundity or penetration. 
He at least contributed to the popularity of his 
author. 

He was willing enough to improve his for- 
tune by other arts than poetry. He was under- 
secretary for three years when the Duke of 
Queensberry was secretary of state, and after- 
wards applied to the Earl of Oxford for some 
public employment.! Oxford enjoined him to 
study Spanish ; and when, some time after- 
wards, he came again, and said that he had 
mastered it, dismissed him with this congratu- 
lation : " Then, Sir, I envy you the pleasure of 
reading « Don Quixote' in the original." 

This story is sufficiently attested ; but why 
Oxford, who desired to be thought a favourer of 
literature, should thus insult a man of acknow- 
ledged merit ; or how Rowe, who was so keen 
a whig, that he did not willingly converse with 
men of the opposite party, could ask preferment 
from Oxford, it is not now possible to discover. 
Pope,!; who told the story, did not say on what 
occasion the advice was given ; and, though he 
owned Rowe's disappointment, doubted whether 
any injury was intended him, but thought it 
rather Lord Oxford's odd way. 

It is likely that he lived on discontented 
through the rest of Queen Anne's reign ; but 
the time came at last when he found kinder 
friends. At the accession of King George he 
was made poet-laureat ; I am afraid by the 
ejection of poor Nahum Tate, who (1716) died 
in the Mint, where he was forced to seek shelter 
by extreme poverty. He was made likewise 
one of the land-surveyors of the customs of the 
port of London. The Prince of Wales chose 
him clerk of his council ; and the Lord Chan- 
cellor Parker, as soon as he received the seals, 
appointed him, unasked, secretary of the pre- 
sentations. Such an accumulation of employ- 
ments undoubtedly produced a very considerable 
revenue. 

Having already translated some parts of Lu- 
can's " Pharsalia," which had been published 
in the Miscellanies, and doubtless received many 
praises, he undertook a version of the whole 
work, which he lived to finish, but not to 
publish. It seems to have been printed under 
the care of Dr. Welwood, who prefixed the 
author's life, in which is contained the follow- 
ing character : 



* Mr. Rowe's preface, however, is not distinct, 
as it might be supposed from this passage, from the 
life.— R. 

f S pence. J Ibid. 



" As to his pei'son, it was graceful and well 
made : his face regular, and of a manly beauty. 
As his soul was well lodged, so its rational and 
animal faculties excelled in a high degree. He 
had a quick and fruitful invention, a deep pene- 
tration, and a large compass of thought, with 
singular dexterity and easiness in making his 
thoughts to be understood. He was master of 
most parts of polite learning, especially the 
classical authors, both Greek and Latin ; under- 
stood the French, Italian, and Spanish lan- 
guages ; and spoke the first fluently, and the 
other two tolerably well. 

" He had likewise read most of the Greek and 
Roman histories in their original languages, 
and most that are written in English, French, 
Italian, and Spanish. He had a good taste in 
philosophy; and, having a firm impression of 
religion upon his mind, he took great delight 
in divinity and ecclesiastical history, in both 
which he made great advances in the times 
he retired into the country, which were fre- 
quent. He expressed, on all occasions, his full 
persuasion of the truth of revealed religion; 
and, being a sincere member of the established 
church himself, he pitied, but condemned not, 
those that dissented from it. He abhorred the 
principles of persecuting men upon the account 
of their opinions in religion ; and, being strict 
in his own, he took it not upon him to censure 
those of another persuasion. His conversation 
was pleasant, witty, and learned, without the 
least tincture of affectation or pedantry ; and 
his inimitable manner of diverting and enliven- 
ing the company, made it impossible for any 
one to be out of humour when he was in it. 
Envy and detraction seemed to be entirely fo- 
reign to his constitution ; and whatever provo- 
cations he met with at any time, he passed them 
over without the least thought of resentment or 
revenge. As Homer had a Ziolus, so Mr. Rowe 
had sometimes his ; for there were not wanting 
malevolent people and pretenders to poetry too, 
that would now and then bark at his best per- 
formances; but he was conscious of his own 
genius, and had so much good-nature as to for- 
give them ; nor could he ever be tempted to re- 
turn them an answer. 

" The love of learning and poetry made him 
not the less fit for business, and nobody applied 
himself closer-to it, when it required his attend- 
ance. The late Duke of Queensberry, when he 
was secretary of state, made him his secretary 
for public affairs ; and when that truly great 
man came to know him well, he was never so 
pleased as when Mr. Rowe was in his com- 
pany. After the Duke's death, all avenues 
were stopped to his preferment ; and, during 
the rest of that reign, he passed his time with 
the muses and his books, and sometimes the 
conversation of his friends. 

" When he had just got to be easy in hia 



154 



ROWE. 



fortune, and was in a fair way to make it better, 
death swept him away, and in him deprived 
the world of one of the best men, as well as 
one of the best geniuses of the age. He 
died like a Christian and a philosopher, in 
charity with all mankind, and with an absolute 
resignation to the will of God. He kept up his 
good -humour to the last; and took leave of his 
wife and friends, immediately before his last 
agony, with the same tranquillity of mind, and 
the same indifference for life, as though he had 
been upon taking but a short journey. He was 
twice married : first to a daughter of Mr. Par- 
sons, one of the auditors of the revenue ; and 
afterwards to a daughter of Mr. Devenish, of a 
good family in Dorsetshire. By the first he 
had a son ; and by the second a daughter, mar- 
ried afterwards to Mr. Fane. He died the 
sixth of December, 1718, in the forty-fifth year 
of his age ; and was buried the nineteenth of 
the same month in Westminster Abbey, in the 
aisle where many of our English poets are in- 
terred, over against Chaucer, his body being at- 
tended by a select number of his friends, and the 
Dean and choir officiating at the funeral." 

To this character, which is apparently given 
with the fondness of a friend, may be added the 
testimony of Pope, who says in a letter to 
Blount, " Mr. Rowe accompanied me, and 
passed a week in the Forest. I need not tell 
you how much a man of his turn entertained 
me ; but I must acquaint you, there is a viva- 
city and gayety of disposition almost peculiar to 
him, which makes it impossible to part from 
him without that uneasiness which generally 
succeeds all our pleasure." 

Pope has left behind him another mention of 
his companion, less advantageous^ which is thus 
reported by Dr. Warburton. 

" Rowe, in Mr. Pope's opinion, maintained 
a decent character, but had no heart. Mr. Ad- 
dison was justly offended with some behaviour 
which arose from that want, and estranged 
himself from him ; which Rowe fell very se- 
verely. Mr. Pope, their common friend, know- 
ing this, took an opportunity, at some juncture 
of Mr. Addison's advancement, to tell him how 
poor Rowe was grieved at his displeasure, and 
what satisfaction he expressed at Mr. Addison's 
good fortune, which he expressed so naturally, 
that he (Mr. Pope) could not but think him 
sincere. Mr. Addison replied, < I do not sus- 
pect that he feigned ; but the levity of his heart 
is such, that he is struck with any new adven- 
ture; and it would affect him just in the same 
manner, if he heard I was going to be hanged. ' 
—Mr. Pope said he could not deny but Mr. 
Addison understood Rowe well." 

This censure time has not left us the power 
of confirming or refuting ; but observation daily 
shows, that much stress is not to be laid on hy- 
perbolical accusations, and pointed sentences, 



which even he that utters them desires to be 
applauded rather than credited. Addison can 
hardly be supposed to have meant all that he 
said. Few characters can bear the microscopic 
scrutiny of wit quickened by anger ; and per- 
haps the best advice to authors would be, that 
they should keep out of the way of one another. 

Rowe is chiefly to be considered as a tragic 
writer and a translator. In his attempt at co- 
medy he failed so ignominiously, that his " Bi- 
ter" is not inserted in his works; and his oc- 
casional poems and short compositions are rarely 
worthy of either praise or censure ; for they 
seem the casual sports of a mind seeking rather 
to amuse its leisure than to exercise its powers. 

In the construction of his dramas, there is 
not much art ; he is not a nice observer of the 
unities. He extends time and varies place as 
his convenience requires. To vary the place is 
not, in my opinion, any violation of nature, if 
the change be made between the acts ; for it is 
no less easy for the spectator to suppose himself 
at Athens in the second act, than at Thebes in 
the first ; but to change the scene, as is done by 
Rowe, in the middle of an act, is to add more 
acts to the play, since an act is so much of the 
business as is transacted without interruption. 
Rowe, by this licence, easily extricates himself 
from difficulties; as, in "Jane Gray," when 
we have been terrified with all the dreadful 
pomp of public execution, and are wondering 
how the heroine or the poet will proceed, no 
sooner has Jane pronounced some prophetic 
rhymes, than — pass and be gone — the scene 
closes, and Pembroke and Gardiner are turned 
out upon the stage. 

I know not that there can be found in his 
plays, any deep search into nature, any accurate 
discriminations of kindred qualities, or nice dis- 
play of passion in its progress : all is general 
and undefined. Nor does he much interest or 
affect the auditor, except in " Jane Shore," 
who is always seen and heard with pity. Ali- 
cia is a character of empty noise, with no re- 
semblance to real sorrow or to natural madness. 

Whence, then, has Rowe his reputation ? 
From the reasonableness and propriety of some 
of his scenes, from the elegance of his diction, 
and the suavity of his verse. He seldom moves 
either pity or terror, but he often elevates the 
sentiments ; he seldom pierces the breast, but he 
always delights the ear, and often improves the 
understanding. 

His translation of the " Golden Verses," and 
of the first book of Quillet's Poem, have no- 
thing in them remarkable. The " Golden 
Verses" are tedious. 

The version of Lucan is one of the greatest 
productions of English poetry ; for there is per- 
haps none that so completely exhibits the genius 
and spirit of the original. Lucan is distin- 
guished by a kind of dictatorial or philosophic 



ADDISON. 



i55 



dignity, rather, as Quintilian observes, declama- 
tory than poetical ; full of ambitious morality 
and pointed sentences, comprised in vigorous 
and animated lines. This character Rowe has 
very diligently and successfully preserved. His 
versification, which is such as his contempora- 
ries practised, without any attempt at innova- 
tion or improvement, seldom wants either me- 



lody or force. His author's sense is sometimes 
a little diluted by additional infusions, and 
sometimes weakened by too much expansion. 
But such faults are to be expected in all tran- 
slations, from the constraint of measures and 
dissimilitude of languages. The " Pharsalia" 
of Rowe deserves more notice than it obtains, 
and as it is more read will be more esteemed.* 



ADDISON. 



Joseph Addison was born on the first of May, 
1673, at Milston, of which his father, Lancelot 
Addison, was then rector, near Ambrosebury 
in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely 
to live, he was christened the same day. After 
the usual domestic education, which from the 
character of his father may be reasonably sup- 
posed to have given him strong impressions of 
piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. 
Naish, at Ambrosebury, and afterwards of Mr. 
Taylor, at Salisbury. 

Not to name the school or the masters of men 
illustrious for literature is a kind of historical 
fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously di- 
mished ; I would therefore trace him through 
the whole process of his education. In 1683, 
in the beginning of his twelfth year, his father, 
being made dean of Lichfield, naturally carried 
his family to his new residence, and, 1 believe, 
placed him for some time, probably not long, 
under Mr. Shaw, then master of the school at 
Lichfield, father of the late Dr. Peter Shaw. 
Of this interval his biographers have given no 
account, and I know it only from a story of a 
barring-out, told me when I was a boy, by An- 
drew Corbet of Shropshire, who had heard it 
from Mr. Pigot, his uncle. 

The practice of barring-out was a savage li- 
cence, practised in many schools at the end of 
the last century, by which the boys, when the 
periodical vacation drew near, growing petulent 
at the approach of liberty, some days before the 
time of regular recess, took possession of the 
school, of which they barred the doors, and bade 
their master defiance from the windows. It is 
not easy to suppose that on such occasions the 
master would do more than laugh ; yet if tra- 
dition may be credited, he often struggled hard 
to force or surprise the garrison. The master, 
when Pigot was a school-boy, was barred-out 
at Lichfield ; and the whole operation, as he 
8?id, was planned and conducted by Addison. 

To judge better of the nrobabilitv of this 



story, I have inquired when he was sent to the 
Cbartreux ; but, as he was not one of those who 
enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no 
account preserved of his admission. At the 
school of the Chartreux, to which he was re- 
moved either from that of Salisbury or Lich- 
field, he pursued his juvenile studies under the 
care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy 
with Sir Richard Steele, which their joint la- 
bours have so effectually recorded. 

Of this memorable friendship the greater 
praise must be given to Steele. It is not hard 
to love those from whom nothing can be feared ; 
and Addison never considered Steele as a rival, 
but Steele lived, as he confesses, under an ha- 
bitual subjection to the predominating genius of 
Addison, whom he always mentioned with re- 
verence, and treated with obsequiousness. 

Addison,f who knew his own dignity, could 
not always forbear to show it, by playing a lit- 
tle upon his admirer ; but he was in no danger 
of retort : his jests were endured without re- 
sistance or resentment. 

But the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. 
Steele, whose imprudence of generosity, or van- 
ity of profusion, kept him always incurably ne- 
cessitous, upon some pressing exigence, in an 
evil hour, borrowed a hundred pounds of his 
friend, probably without much purpose of re- 
payment ; but Addison, who seems to have had 
other notions of a hundred pounds, grew im- 
patient of delay, and reclaimed his loan by an 
execution. Steele felt with great sensibility the 
obduracy of his creditor, but with emotions of 
sorrow rather than of anger. \ 

* The life of Rowe is a very remarkable instance 
of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's memory. 
When I received from him the MS. he complacently 
observed, " that the criticism -was tolerably well 
done, considering that he had not seen Rowe's 
Works for thirty years." — N. 

t Spence. 

| This fact was communicated to Johnson in my 



156 



ADDISON. 



In 1687, he was entered into Queen's College, 
in Oxford, where, in 1689, the accidental per- 
usal of some Latin verses gained him the pa- 
tronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards provost of 
Queen's College; hy whose recommendation he 
was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy, 
a term hy which that society denominates those 
which are elsewhere called Scholars; young 
men who partake of the founder's benefac- 
tion, and succeed in their order to vacant fel- 
lowships. * 

Here he continued to cultivate poetry and 
criticism, and grew first eminent hy his Latin 
compositions, which are indeed entitled to parti- 
cular praise. He has not confined himself to 
the imitation of any ancient author, hut has 
formed his style from the general language, such 
as a diligent perusal of the productions of dif- 
ferent ages happened to supply. 

His Latin compositions seem to have had 
much of his fondness, for he collected a second 
volume of the " Musse Anglicanse," perhaps 
for a convenient receptacle, in which all his 
Latin pieces are inserted, and where his poem 
on the Peace has the first place. He afterwards 
presented the collection to Boileau, who, from 
that time, " conceived," says Tickell, " an 
opinion of the English genius for poetry." 
Nothing is hetter known of Boileau, than that 
he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of 
modern Latin, and therefore his profession of 
regard was probably the effect of his civility ra- 
ther than approbation. 

Three of his Latin poems are upon subjects 
on which perhaps he would not have ventured 
to have written in his own language. " The 
Battle of the Pigmies and Cranes;" " The Ba- 
rometer;" and " A Bowling-green." When 
the matter is low or scanty, a dead language, in 
which nothing is mean because nothing is fa- 
miliar, affords great conveniences ; and, by the 
sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the 
writer conceals penury of thought, and want 
of novelty, often from the reader, and often 
from himself. 

In his twenty-second year he first showed his 
power of English poetry by some verses ad- 
dressed to Dry den ; and soon afterwards publish- 
ed a translation of the greater part of the Fourth 
Georgic, upon Bees; after which, says Dry- 
den, " my latter swarm is hardly worth the 
hiving." 

hearing by a person of unquestionable yeracity, but 
whose name I am not at liberty to mention. He had 
it, as he told us, from Lady Primrose, to whom 
Steele related it with tears in his eyes. The late 
Dr. Stinton confirmed it to me, by saying, that he 
heard it from Mr. Hooke, author of the Roman His- 
tory ; and he from Mr. Pope. — H. 

See, Victor's Letters, vol. i. p. 328, this transaction 
somewhat differently related. — R. 

* He took the degree of M. A. Feb. 14, 1693. 



About the same time he composed the argu- 
ments prefixed to the several books of Dryden'a 
Virgil : and produced an essay on the " Geor- 
gics," juvenile, superficial, and uninstructive, 
without much either of the scholar's learning 
or the critic's penetration. 

His next paper of verses contained a charac- 
ter of the principal English poets, inscribed to 
Henry Sacheverell, who was then, if not a poet, 
a writer of verses ;* as is shown by his version 
of a small part of Virgil's " Georgics," pub- 
lished in the Miscellanies ; and a Latin enco- 
mium on Queen Mary, in the " Musse Angli- 
canse." These verses exhibit all the fondness 
of friendship ; but on one side or the other, 
friendship was afterwards too weak for the ma- 
lignity of faction. 

In this poem is a very confident and discrimi- 
nate character of Spenser, whose work he had 
then never read.f So little sometimes is criti- 
cism the effect of judgment. It is necessary to 
inform the reader, that about this time he was 
introduced by Congreve to Montague, then 
chancellor of the Exchequer : Addison was then 
learning the trade of a courtier, and subjoined 
Montague as a poetical name to those of Cowley 
and of Dryden. 

By the influence of Mr. Montague, concur- 
ring, according to Tickell, with his natural mo-, 
desty, he was diverted from his original design 
of entering into holy orders. Montague alleged 
the corruption of men who engaged in civil em- 
ployments without liberal education ; and de- 
clared, that, though he was represented as an 
enemy to the church, he would never do it any 
injury but by withholding Addison from it. 

Soon after (in 1695) he wrote a poem to King 
William, with a rhyming introduction addressed 
to Lord Somers. King William had no regard 
to elegance or literature ; his study was only 
war ; yet by a choice of ministers, whose dispo- 
sition was very different from his own, he pro- 
cured, without intention, a very liberal patron- 

* A letter which I found among Dr. Johnson's 
papers, dated in January, 1784, from a lady in Wilt- 
shire, contains a discovery of some importance in 
literary history, viz. that, by the initials H. S. pre- 
fixed to the poem, we are not to understand the 
famous Dr. Henry Sacheverell, whose trial is the 
most remarkable incident in his life. The infor- 
mation thus communicated is, that the verses in 
question were not an address to the famous Dr. 
Sacheverell, but to a very ingenious gentleman of 
the same name, who died young, supposed to be a 
Manksman, for that he wrote the history of the Isle of 
Man. — That this person left his papers to Mr. Addi- 
son, and had formed a plan of a tragedy upon the 
death of Socrates.— The lady says she had this in- 
formation from a Mr. Stephens, who was a fellow of 
Merfon College, a contemporary and intimate with 
Mr. Addison, in Oxford, who died near fifty years 
ago, a prebendary of Winchester. — H. 

t S pence. 



ADDISON. 



157 



*ge to poetry. Addison was caressed both by 
Somers and Montague. 

In 1697 appeared bis Latin verses on the 
peace of Ryswick, which he dedicated to Mon- 
tague, and which was afterwards called by 
Smith, " the best Latin poem since the ' 2E- 
neid.' " Praise must not be too rigorously ex- 
amined ; but the performance cannot be denied 
to be vigorous and elegant. 

Having yet no public employment, he obtain- 
ed, (in 1699) a pension of three hundred pounds 
a year, that he might be enabled to travel. He 
staid a year at Blois,* probably to learn the 
French language; and then proceeded in his 
journey to Italy, which he surveyed with the 
eyes of a poet. 

While he was travelling at leisure, he was far 
from being idle : for he not only collected his 
observations on the country, but found time to 
write his Dialogues on Medals, and four acts of 
" Cato." Such at least is the relation of Tick- 
ell. Perhaps he only collected his materials, 
and formed his plan. 

Whatever were his other employments in Ita- 
ly, he there wrote the Letter to Lord Halifax, 
which is justly considered as the most elegant, if 
not the most sublime, of his poetical productions. 
But in about two years he found it necessary to 
hasten home ; being, as Swift informs us, dis- 
tressed by indigence, and compelled to become 
the tutor of a travelling squire, because his pen- 
sion was not remitted. 

At his return he published his Travels, with 
a dedication to Lord Somers. As his stay in 
foreign countries was short, his observations are 
such as might be supplied by a hasty view, and 
consist chiefly in comparisons of the present 
face of the country with the descriptions left us 
by the Roman poets, from whom he made, pre- 
paratory collections, though he might have 
spared the trouble, had he known that such 
collections had been made twice before by Italian 
authors. 

The most amusing passage of his book is his 
account of the minute republic of San Marino ; 
of many parts it is not a very severe censure 
to say, that they might have been written at 
home. His elegance of language, and variega- 
tion of prose and verse, however, gains upon 
the reader; and the book, though awhile neg- 
lected, became in time so much the favourite of 
the public, that before it was reprinted it rose 
to five times its price. 

When he returned to England (in 1702) with 
a meanness of appearance which gave testimony 
of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, 
he found his old patrons out of power, and was 
therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the 
cultivation of his mind : and a mind so culti- 



Spence. 



vated gives reason to believe that little time 
was lost. 

But he remained not long neglected or use- 
less. The victory at Blenheim (1704) spread 
triumph and confidence over the nation ; and 
Lord Godolphin, lamenting to Lord Halifax, 
that it had not been celebrated in a manner equal 
to the subject, desired him to propose it to some 
better poet. Halifax told him, that there was 
no encouragement for genius ; that worthless 
men were unprofitably enriched with public 
money, without any care to find or employ 
those whose appearance might do honour to 
their country. To this Godolphin replied, that 
such abuses should in time be rectified ; and 
that, if a man could be found capable of the 
task then proposed, he should not want an am- 
ple recompense. Halifax then named Addison, 
but required that the treasurer should apply to 
him in his own person. Godolphin sent the 
message by Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carl- 
ton ; and Addison, having undertaken the work, 
communicated it to the treasurer, while it was 
yet advanced no further than the simile of the 
angel, and was immediately rewarded by suc- 
ceeding Mr. Locke in the place of commissioner 
of appeals. 

In the following year he was at LTanover with 
Lord Halifax ; and the year after he was made 
under secretary of state, first to Sir Charles 
Hedges, and in a few months more to the Earl 
of Sunderland. 

About this time the prevalent taste for Italian 
operas inclined him to try what would be the 
effect of a musical drama in our own language. 
He therefore wrote the opera of " Rosamond," 
which, when exhibited on the stage, was either 
hissed or neglected ; but, trusting that the read- 
ers would do him more justice, he published it, 
with an inscription to the Dutchess of Marlbo- 
rough ; a woman without skill, or pretensions 
to skill, in poetry or literature. His dedi- 
cation was therefore an instance of servile 
absurdity, to be exceeded only by Joshua 
Barnes's dedication of a Greek Anacreon to 
the Duke. 

His reputation had been somewhat advanced 
by " The Tender Husband," a comedy which 
Steele dedicated to him, with a confession that 
he owed to him several of the most success- 
ful scenes. To this play Addison supplied a 
prologue. 

When the Marquis of Wharton was appoint- 
ed lord lieutenant of Ireland, Addison attended 
him as his secretary, and was made keeper of 
the records in Birmingham's Tower, with a 
salary of three hundred pounds a year. The 
office was little more than nominal, and the 
salary was augmented for his accommodation. 

Interest and faction allow little to the opera- 
tion of particular dispositions or private opi- 
nions. Two men of personal characters more 
X 



158 



ADDISON. 



opposite than those of Wharton and Addison 
could not easily be brought together. Wharton 
was impious, profligate, and shameless, without 
regard, or appearance of regard, to right and 
wrong : * whatever is contrary to this may be 
said of Addison; but as agents of a party they 
were connected, and how they adjusted their 
other sentiments we cannot know. 

Addison must however not be too hastily con- 
demned. It is not necessary to refuse benefits 
from a bad man, when the acceptance implies no 
approbation of his crimes ; nor has the subordi- 
nate officer any obligation to examine the opinions 
or conduct of those under whom he acts, except 
that he may not be made the instrument of wick- 
edness. It is reasonable to suppose that Addison 
counteracted, as far as he was able, the malignant 
and blasting influence of the Lieutenant ; and 
that at least by his intervention some good was 
done and some mischief prevented. 

When he was in office, he made a law to him- 
self, as Swift has recorded, never to remit his 
regular fees in civility to his friends : " for," 
said he, " I may have a hundred friends ; and 
if my fee be two guineas, I shall, by relinquish- 
ing my right, lose two hundred guineas, and no 
friend gain more than two : there is therefore 
no proportion between the good imparted and 
the evil suffered." 

He was in Ireland when Steele, without any 
communication of his design, began the publica- 
tion of the " Tatler ;" but he was not long con- 
cealed ; by inserting a remark on Virgil which 
Addison had given him, he discovered himself. 
It is indeed not easy for any man to write upon 
literature or common life, so as not to make him- 
self known to those with whom he familiarly 
converses, and who are acquainted with his track 
of study, his favourite topic, his peculiar notions, 
and his habitual phrases. 

If Steele desired to write in secret, he was not 
lucky ; a single month detected him. His first 
Tatler was published April 22, (1709) and Ad^ 
dison's contribution appeared May 26. Tickell 
observes, that the " Tatler" began and was con- 
cluded without his concurrence. This is doubt- 
less literally true ; but the work did not suffer 
much by his unconsciousness of its commence- 
ment or his absence at its cessation ; for he con- 
tinued his assistance to December 23, and the 
paper stopped on January 2. He did not dis- 
tinguish his pieces by any signature ; and I know 
not whether his name was not kept secret till 
the papers were collected into volumes. 

To the " Tatler," in about two months, suc- 
ceeded the " Spectator ;" a series of essays of the 
same kind, but written with less levity, upon a 
more regular plan, and published daily. Such 

• Dr. Johnson appears to have blended the cha- 
racter of the Marquis with that of his son the Duke. 

— N. 



an undertaking showed the writers not to dis- 
trust their own copiousness of materials, or fa- 
cility of composition, and their performance 
justified their confidence. They found, however, 
in their progress, many auxiliaries. To attempt 
a single paper was no terrifying labour ; many 
pieces were offered, and many were received. 

Addison had enough of the zeal of party, but 
Steele had at that time almost nothing else. The 
" Spectator," in one of the first papers, showed 
the political tenets of its authors ; but a resolu- 
tion was soon taken, of courting general appro- 
bation by general topics and subjects on which 
faction had produced no diversity of sentiments, 
such as literature, morality, and familiar life. 
To this practice they adhered with few devia- 
tions. The ardour of Steele once broke out in 
praise of Marlborough ; and when Dr. Fleet- 
wood prefixed to some sermons a preface over- 
flowing with whiggish opinions, that it might 
be read by the Queen, * it was reprinted in the 
" Spectator." 

To teach the minuter decencies and inferior 
duties, to regulate the practice of daily conver- 
sation, to correct those depravities which are 
rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove 
those grievances which, if they produce no last- 
ing calamities, impress hourly vexation, was first 
attempted by Casa in his book of Manners, and 
Castiglione in his " Courtier j" two books yet 
celebrated in Italy for purity and elegance, and 
which, if they are now less read, are neglected 
only because they have effected that reformation 
which their authors intended, and their precepts 
now are no longer wanted. Their usefulness to 
the age in which they were written is sufficient- 
ly attested by the translations which almost all 
the nations of Europe were in haste to obtain. 

This species of instruction was continued, and 
perhaps advanced, by the French ; among whom 
La Bruyere's " Manners of the Age," though, 
as Boileau remarked, it is written without con- 
nection, certainly deserves praise for liveliness of 
description and justness of observation. 

Before the " Tatler" and " Spectator," if the 
writers for the theatre are excepted, England 
had no masters of common life. No writers had 
yet undertaken to reform either the savageness 
of neglect or the impertinence of civility ; to 
show when to speak or to be silent ; how to re- 
fuse or how to comply. We had many books tG 
teach us our more important duties, and to set- 
tle opinions in philosophy or politics j but an 
Arbiter Elegantiarum, a judge of propriety, was 



* This particular number of the " Spectator/' it 
is said, was not published till twelve o'clock, that it 
might come out precisely at the hour of her Majes- 
ty's breakfast, and that no time might be left for de- 
liberating about serving it up with that meal, as 
usual. See the edition of the "Tatler" with no*es, 
vol. vi. No. 271, note p. 452, &c— -N. 



ADDISON. 



159 



yet wanting, who should survey the track of 
daily conversation, and free it from thorns and 
prickles, which tease the passer, though they do 
not wound him. 

For this purpose nothing is so proper as the 
frequent publication of short papers, which we 
read not as study but amusement. If the sub- 
ject be slight, the treatise is short. The busy 
may find time, and the idle may find patience. 

This mode of conveying cheap and easy know- 
ledge began among us in the civil war,* when it 
was much the interest of either party to raise 
and fix the prejudices of the people. At that 
time appeared " Mercurius Aulicus," " Mercu- 
rius Rusticus," and " Mercurius Civicus." It 
is said that when any title grew popular, it was 
stolen by the antagonist, who by this stratagem 
conveyed his notions to those who would not 
have received him had he not worn the appear- 
ance of a friend. The tumult of those unhappy 
days left scarcely any man leisure to treasure up 
occasional compositions ; and so much were they 
neglected, that a complete collection is no where 
to be found. 

These Mercuries were succeeded by L'Es- 
trange's " Observator ;" and that by Lesley's 
" Rehearsal," and perhaps by others; but hith- 
erto nothing had been conveyed to the people in 
this commodious manner but controversy relat- 
ing to the church or state ; of which they taught 
many to talk, whom they could not teach to 
judge. 

It has been suggested, that the Royal Society 
was instituted soon after the Restoration to di- 
vert the attention of the people from public dis- 
content. The " Tatler" and " Spectator" had 
the same tendency ; they were published at a 
time when two parties, loud, restless, and vio- 
lent, each with plausible declarations, and each 
perhaps without any distinct termination of its 
views, were agitating the nation : to minds heat- 
ed with political contest they supplied cooler and 
more inoffensive reflections ; and it is said by 
Addison, in a subsequent work, that they had a 
perceptible influence upon the conversation of 
that time, and taught the frolicksome and the 
gay to unite merriment with decency ; an effect 
which they can never wholly lose, while they 
continue to be among the first books by which 
both sexes are initiated in the elegancies of 
knowledge. 



* Newspapers appear to have had an earlier date 
than here assigned. Cleiveland, in his character of 
a London diurnal, says, " The original sinner of this 
kind was Dutch ; Gallo-Belgicus, the Protoplas, and 
the modern Mercuries but Hans en Kelders." Some 
intelligence given by Mercurius Gallo Belgicus is 
mentioned in Carew's " Survey of Cornwall," p. 126, 
originally published in 1602. These vehicles of in- 
formation are often mentioned in the plays of James 
and Charles the First.— R, 



The " Tatler" and " Spectator" adjusted, like 
Casa, the unsettled practice of daily intercourse 
by propriety and politeness ; and, like La Bruy- 
ere, exhibited the Characters and Manners ot 
the Age. The personages introduced in these 
papers were not merely ideal ; they were then 
known, and conspicuous in various stations. Of 
the " Tatler" this is told by Steele in his last 
paper; and of the " Spectator" by Budgell in 
the preface to " Theophrastus," a book which 
Addison has recommended, and which he was 
suspected to have revised, if he did not write it. 
Of those portraits, which may be supposed to be 
sometimes embellished and sometimes aggravat- 
ed, the originals are now partly known and 
partly forgotten. 

But to say that they united the plans of two 
or three eminent writers, is to give them but a 
small part of their due praise ; they superadded 
literature and criticism, and sometimes towered 
far above their predecessors, and taught, with 
great justness of argument and dignity of lan- 
guage, the most important duties and sublime 
truths. 

All these topics were happily varied with ele- 
gant fictions and refined allegories, and illumin- 
ated with different changes of style and felicities 
of invention. 

It is recorded by Budgell, that, of the charac- 
ters feigned or exhibited in the " Spectator," the 
favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Cover- 
ley, of whom he had formed a very delicate and 
discriminate idea,* which he would not suffer to 
be violated; and, therefore, when Steele had 
shown him innocently picking up a girl in the 
Temple and taking her to a tavern, he drew 
upon himself so much of his friend's indigna- 
tion, that he was forced to appease him by a 
promise of forbearing Sir Roger for the time to 
come. 

The reason which induced Cervantes to bring 
his hero to the grave, para mi sola nacio Don 
Quixote, y yopara el, made Addison declare, with 
undue vehemence of expression, that he would 
kill Sir Roger ; being of opinion that they were 
born for one another, and that any other hand 
would do him wrong. 

It may be doubted whether Addison ever fill- 
ed up his original delineation. He describes his 
Knight as having his imagination somewha 
warped ; but of this perversion he has made ve- 
ry little use. The irregularities in Sir Ro 
&er's conduct seem not so much the effects of 
mind deviating from the beaten track of life, 
by the perpetual pressure of some overwhelm- 



* The errors in this account are explained at con 
siderable length in the preface to the " Spectator" 
prefixed to the edition in the " British Essayists." 
The original delineation of Sir Roger undoubtedly 
belongs to Steele. — C. 



160 



ADDISON. 



Ing idea, as of habitual rusticity, and that neg- 
ligence which solitary grandeur naturally gen- 
erates. 

The variable weather of the mind, the flying 
vapours of incipient madness, which from time 
to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it re- 
quires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison 
seems to have been, deterred from prosecuting his 
own design. 

To Sir Roger, who, as a country gentleman, 
appears to be a tory, or, as it is gently expressed, 
an adherent to the landed interest, is opposed Sir 
Andrew Freeport, a new man, a wealthy mer- 
chant, zealous for the monied interest, and a 
whig. Of this contrariety of opinions, it is pro- 
bable more consequences were at first intended 
than could be produced, when the resolution was 
taken to exclude party from the paper. Sir 
Andrew does but little, and that little seems 
not to have pleased Addison, who, when he 
dismissed him from the club, changed his 
opinions. Steele had made him, in the true 
spirit of unfeeling commerce, declare that he 
" would not build a hospital for-idle people j" 
but at last he buys land, settles in the country, 
and builds, not a manufactory, but a hospital 
for twelve old husbandmen ; for men, with 
whom a merchant has little acquaintance, and 
whom he commonly considers with little kind- 
ness. 

Of essays thus elegant, thus instructive, and 
thus commodiously distributed, it is natural to 
suppose the approbation general, and the sale 
numerous. I once heard it observed, that the 
sale may be calculated by the product of the tax, 
related in the last number to produce more than 
twenty pounds a week, and therefore stated at 
one and twenty pounds, or three pounds ten 
shillings a day : this, at a halfpenny a paper, 
will give sixteen hundred and eighty* for the 
daily number. 

This sale is not great; yet this, if Swift be 
credited, was likely to grow less; for he de- 
clares that the " Spectator," whom he ridicules 
for his endless mention of the fair sex, had be- 
fore his recess wearied his readers. 

The next year (1713), in which " Cato" came 
upon the stage, was the grand climacteric of 
Addison's reputation. Upon the death of Cato, 
he had, as is said, planned a tragedy in the time 
of his travels, and had for several years the first 
four acts finished, which were shown to such 
as were likely to spread their admiration. 
They were seen by Pope, and by Gibber, who 
relates that Steele, when he took back the copy, 
told him, in the despicable cant of literary mo- 
desty, that, whatever spirit his friend had 
shown in the composition, he doubted whether 



* That this calculation is not exaggerated, that it 
is even much below the real number, see the notes 
on the " Tatler," ed. 1780, vol. vi. p. 452.— N. 



he would have courage sufficient to expose ft " 
the censure of a British audience. 

The time however was now come, when those 
who affected to think liberty in danger, affected 
likewise to think that a stage play might pre- 
serve it ; and Addison was importuned, in the 
name of the tutelary deities of Britain, to show 
his courage and his zeal by finishing his design. 

To resume his work he seemed perversely and 
unaccountably unwilling ; and by a request 
which perhaps he wished to be denied, desired 
Mr. Hughes to add a fifth act. Hughes sup- 
posed him serious ; and, undertaking the sup- 
plement, brought in a few days some scenes for 
his examination : but he had in the mean time 
gone to work himself, and produced half an act, 
which he afterwards completed, but with bre- 
vity irregularly disproportionate to the foregoing 
parts, like a task, performed with reluctance 
and hurried to its conclusion. 

It may yet be doubted whether " Cato " was 
made public by any change of the Author's pur- 
pose ; for Dennis charged him with raising 
prejudices in his own favour, by false positions 
of preparatory criticism, and with poisoning 
the town by contradicting in the " Spectator" 
the established ride of poetical justice, because 
his own hero, with all his virtues, was to fall 
before a tyrant. The fact is certain ; the motives 
we must guess. 

Addison was, I believe, sufficiently disposed 
to bar all avenues against all danger. When 
Pope brought him the prologue, which is pro- 
perly accommodated to the play, there were 
these words : " Britons, arise ! be worth like 
this approved," meaning nothing more than 
Britons, erect and exalt yourselves to the ap- 
probation of public virtue; Addison was 
frighted, lest he should be thought a promoter 
of insurrection, and the line was liquidated to 
" Britons, attend." 

Now " heavily in clouds came on the day, 
the great, the important day," when Addison 
was to stand the hazard of the theatre. That 
there might, however, be left as little hazard as 
was possible, on the first night, Steele, as him- 
self relates, undertook to pack an audience. 
This, says Pope,* had been tried for the first 
time in favour of the " Distrest Mother ;" 
and was now, with more efficacy, practised for 
" Cato." 

The danger was soon over. The whole na- 
tion was at that time on fire with faction. The 
whigs applauded every line in which liberty was 
mentioned, as a satire on the tories ; and the 
tories echoed every clap, to show that the satire 
was unfelt. The story of Bolingbroke is well 
known. He called Booth to his box, and gave 
him fifty guineas for defending the cause of 
liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. 



Spence. 



ADDISON. 



161 



The whigs, says Pope, design a second present, 
when they can accompany it with as good a 
sentence. 

The play, supported thus by the emulation of 
factious praise, was acted night after night for 
a longer time than, I believe, the public had 
allowed to any drama before; and the Author, 
as Mrs. Porter long afterwards related, wan- 
dered through the whole exhibition behind the 
scenes with restless and unappeasable solici- 
tude. 

When it was printed, notice was given that 
the Queen would be pleased if it was dedicated 
to her ; " but, as he had designed that compli- 
ment elsewhere, he found himself obliged," says 
Tickell, " by his duty on the one hand, and his 
honour on the other, to send it into the world 
without any dedication." 

Human happiness has always its abatements; 
the brightest sunshine of success is not without 
a cloud. No sooner was " Cato" offered to 
the reader than it was attacked by the acute 
malignity of Dennis, with all the violence of 
angry criticism. Dennis, though equally zeal- 
ous, and probably by his temper more furious, 
than Addison, for what they called liberty, and 
though a flatterer of the whig ministry, could 
not sit quiet at a successful play ; but was eager 
to tell friends and enemies that they had mis- 
placed their admirations. The world was too 
stubborn for instruction ; with the fate of the 
censurer of Corneille's Cid, his animadversions 
showed his anger without effect, and " Cato" 
continued to be praised. 

Pope had now an opportunity of courting the 
friendship of Addison, by vilifying his old enemy, 
and could give resentment its full play, without 
appearing to revenge himself. He therefore 
published " A Narrative of the Madness of 
John Dennis;" a performance which left the 
objections to the play in their full force, and 
therefore discovered more desire of Vexing the 
critic than of defending the poet. 

Addison, who was no stranger to the world, 
probably saw the selfishness of Pope's friend- 
ship ; and, resolving that he should have the 
consequences of his officiousness to himself, in- 
formed Dennis *by Steele, that he was sorry for 
the insult ; and that whenever he should think 
fit to answer his remarks he would do it in a 
manner to which nothing could be objected. 

The greatest weakness of the play is in the 
scenes of love, which are said by Pope* to have 
been added to the original plan upon a subse- 
quent review, in compliance with the popular 
practice of the stage. Such an authority it is 
hard to reject; yet the love is so intimately 
mingled with the whole action that it cannot 
easily be thought extrinsic aud adventitious ; 



Spence. 



for, if it were taken away, what would be left ? 
or how were the four acts filled in the first 
draught ? 

At the publication the wits seemed proud to 
pay their attendance with encomiastic verses. 
The best are from an unknown hand, which 
will perhaps lose somewhat of their praise when 
the author is known to be Jeffreys. 

" Cato" had yet other honours. It was cen- 
sured as a party-play by a scholar of Oxford, 
and defended in a favourable examination by 
Dr. Sewel. It was translated by Salvini into 
Italian, and acted at Florence ; and by the 
Jesuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by 
their pupils. Of this version a copy was sent to 
Mr. Addison : it is to be wished that it could 
be found, for the sake of comparing their version 
of the soliloquy with that of Bland. 

A tragedy was written on the same subject by 
Des Champs, a French poet, which was tran- 
slated with a criticism on the English play. 
But the translator and the critic are now for- 
gotten. 

Dennis lived on unanswered, and therefore 
little read. Addison knew the policy of litera- 
ture too well to make his enemy important by 
drawing the attention of the public upon a criti- 
cism which, though sometimes intemperate, was 
often irrefragable. 

While " Cato" was upon the stage, another 
daily paper, called " the Guardian," was pub- 
lished by Steele. To this Addison gave great 
assistance, whether occasionally or by previous 
engagement is not known. 

The character of Guardian was too narrow 
and too serious : it might properly enough 
admit both the duties and decencies of life, but 
seemed not to include literary speculations, and 
was in some degree violated by merriment and 
burlesque. What had the guardian of the liz- 
ards to do with clubs of tall or of little men, 
with nests of ants or with Strada's prolusions ? 

Of this paper nothing is necessary to be said, 
but that it found many contributors, and that 
it was a continuation of the " Spectator" with 
the same elegance and the same variety, till 
some unlucky sparkle from a tory paper 
set Steele's politics on fire, and wit at once 
blazed into faction. He was soon too hot for 
neutral topics, and quitted the " Guardian" to 
write the " Englishman." 

The papers of Addison are marked in the 
" Spectator" by one of the letters in the name 
of Clio, and in the " Guardian" by a hand; 
whether it was, as Tickell pretends to think, 
that he was unwilling to usurp the praise of 
others, or, as Steele, with far greater likelihood, 
insinuates, that he could not without discontent 
impart to others any of his own. I have heard 
that his avidity did not satisfy itself with the 
air of renown, but that with great eagerness he 
laid hold on his proportion of the profits. 



162 



ADDISON. 



Many of these papers were written with 
powers truly comic, with nice discrimination of 
characters, and accurate observation of natural 
or accidental deviation from propriety ; hut it 
was not supposed that he had tried a comedy on 
the stage, till Steele after his death declared him 
the author of the " Drummer." This however 
Steele did not know to be true by any direct tes- 
timony; for, when Addison put the play into 
his hands, he only told him, it was tbe work of 
a " Gentleman in the company ;" and, when 
it was received, as is confessed, with cold disap- 
probation, he was probably less willing to claim 
it. Tickell omitted it in his collection ; but the 
testimony of Steele, and the total silence of any 
other claimant, has determined the public to 
assign it to Addison, and it is now printed with 
his other poetry. Steele carried the " Drum- 
mer" to the play-house, and afterwards to the 
press, and sold the copy for fifty guineas. 

To the opinion of Steele may be added the 
proof supplied by the play itself, of which the 
characters are such as Addison would have de- 
lineated, and the tendency such as Addison 
would have promoted. That it should have 
been ill received would raise wonder, did we 
not daily see the capricious distribution of 
theatrical praise. 

He was not all this time an indifferent spec- 
tator of public affairs. He wrote, as different 
exigencies required (in 1707), " The present 
State of the War, and the necessity of an Aug- 
mentation;" which, however judicious, being 
written on temporary topics, and exhibiting no 
peculiar powers, laid hold on no attention, and 
has naturally sunk by its own weight into neg- 
lect. This cannot be said of the few papers en- 
titled " The Whig Examiner," in which is 
employed all the force of gay malevolence and 
humorous satire. Of this paper, which just 
appeared and expired, Swift remarks, with ex- 
ultation, that " it is now down among the 
dead men."* He might well rejoice at the 
death of that which he could not have killed. 
Every reader of every party, since personal 
malice is past and the papers which once in- 
flamed the nation are read only as effusions of 
Wit, must wish for more of the Whig Examin- 
rs ; for on no occasion was the genius of Ad- 
lison more vigorously exerted, and on none did 
the superiority of his powers more evidently 
ppear. His " Trial of Count Tariff," written 
o expose the treaty of commerce with France, 
ived no longer than the question that pro- 
luced it. 
Not long afterwards, an attempt was made 



* From a tory song in vogue at the time, the bur- 
then whereof is 

;. And he that will this health deny, 

\ Down among the dead men let him lie.— H. 



to revive the " Spectator," at a time indeed by 
no means favourable to literature, when the 
succession of a new family to the throne filled 
the nation with anxiety, discord, and confu- 
sion : and either the turbulence of the times or 
the satiety of the readers put a stop to the pub- 
lication, after an experiment of eighty numbers, 
which were afterwards collected into an eighth 
volume, perhaps more valuable than any of 
those that went before it. Addison produced 
more than a fourth part, and the other contri- 
butors are by no means unworthy of appearing 
as his associates. The time that had passed 
during the suspension of the " Spectator," 
though it had not lessened his power of hum- 
our, seems to have increased his disposition to 
seriousness : the proportion of his religious to 
his comic papers is greater than in the former 
series. 

The " Spectator," from its recommencement, 
was published only three times a week ; and no 
discriminative marks were added to the pa- 
pers. To Addison, Tickell has ascribed twen- 
ty-three. * 

The " Spectator," had many contributors; 
and Steele, whose negligence kept him always 
in a hurry, when it was his turn to furnish a 
paper, called loudly for the letters, of which 
Addison, whose materials were more, made lit- 
tle use ; having recourse to sketches and hints, 
the product of his former studies, which he 
now reviewed and completed : among these are 
named by Tickell the Essays on Wit, those on 
the Pleasures of the Imagination, and the Cri- 
ticism on Milton. 

When the House of Hanover took possession 
of the throne, it was reasonable to expect that 
the zeal of Addison would be suitably rewarded. 
Before the arrival of King George, he was 
made secretary to the regency, and was required 
by his office to send notice to Hanover, that the 
Queen was dead, and that the throne was va- 
cant. To do this would not have been difficult 
to any man but Addison, who was so over- 
whelmed with the greatness of the event, and 
so distracted by choice of expression, that the 
Lords, who could not wait for the niceties of 
criticism, called Mr. Southwell, a clerk in the 
House, and ordered him to despatch the mes- 
sage. Southwell readily told what was neces- 
sary in the common style of business, and va- 
lued himself upon having done what was too 
hard for Addison. 

He was better qualified for the " Freeholder," 
a paper which he published twice a week, from 
Dec. 23, 1715, to the middle of the next year. 
This was undertaken in defence of the estab- 
lished government, sometimes with argument 

* Numb. 556, 557, 553, 559. 561, 562. 565. 567, 568, 
569. 571. 574, 575. 579, 580. 582, 583, 584, 585.. 590. 
592. 598. 600. 



ADDISON. 



163 



and sometimes with mirth. In argument he 
had many equals ; but his humour was singular 
and matchless. Bigotry itself must be delight- 
ed with the tory fox-hunter. 

There are however some strokes less elegant 
and less decent ; such as the Pretender's Jour- 
nal, in which one topic of ridicule is his pover- 
ty. This mode of abuse had been employed by 
Milton against King Charles II. 

* Jacoboei 



Centum, exulantis viscera marsupii regis." 

And Oldmixon delights to tell of some alder- 
man of London, that he had more money than 
the exiled princes ; but that which might be 
expected from Milton's savageness or Oldmix- 
on's meanness was not suitable to the delicacy 
of Addison. 

Steele thought the humour of the " Freehold- 
er" too nice and gentle for such noisy times; 
and is reported to have said, that the ministry 
made use of a lute, when they should have 
called for a trumpet. 

This year (1716)* he married the Countess 
Dowager of Warwick, -whom he had solicited 
by a very long and anxious courtship, perhaps 
with behaviour not very unlike that of Sir 
Roger to his disdainful widow ; and who, I 
am afraid, diverted herself often by playing 
with his passion. He is said to have first known 
her by becoming tutor to her son. f " He 
formed," said Tonson, " the design of get- 
ting that lady from the time when he was 
first recommended into the family." In what 
part of his life he obtained the recommendation, 
or how long, and in what manner, he lived in 
the family, I know not. His advances at first 
were certainly timorous, but grew bolder as his 
reputation and influence increased ; till at last 
the lady was persuaded to marry him, on terms 
much like those on which a Turkish princess is 
espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to pro- 
nounce, " Daughter, I give thee this man for 
thy slave." The marriage, if uncontradicted 
report can be credited, made no addition to his 
happiness ; it neither found them nor made them 
equal. She always remembered her own rank, 
and thought herself entitled to treat with very 
little ceremony the tutor of her son. Rowe's 
ballad of the " Despairing Shepherd" is said to 
have been written, either before or after mar- 
riage, upon this memorable pair j and it is cer- 
tain that Addison has left behind him no en- 
couragement for ambitious love. 

The year after (1717) he rose to his highest 
elevation, being made secretary of state. For 
this employment he might justly be supposed 
qualified by long practice of business, and by his 
regular ascent through other offices ; but expec- 

* August 2. ♦ Spetce. 



tation is often disappointed ; it is universally con- 
fessed that he was unequal to the duties of his 
place. In the House of Commons he could not 
speak, and therefore was useless to the defence 
of the government. In the office, says Pope,* 
he could not issue an order without losing his 
time in quest of fine expressions. What he 
gained in rank he lost in credit ; and, finding 
by experience, his own inability, was forced to 
solicit his dismission, with a pension of fifteen 
hundred pounds a year. His friends palliated 
this relinquishment, of which both friends and 
enemies knew the true reason, with an account 
of declining health and the necessity of recess 
and quiet. 

He now returned to his vocation, and began 
to plan literary occupations for his future life. 
He purposed a tragedy on the death of Socrates : 
a story of which, as Tickell remarks, the basis 
is narrow, and to which I know not how love 
could have been appended. There would how- 
ever have been no want either of virtue in the 
sentiments or elegance in the language. 

He engaged in a nobler work, a defence of the 
Christian religion, of which part was published 
after his death ; and he designed to have made a 
new poetical version of the " Psalms." 

These pious compositions Pope imputedf to a 
selfish motive, upon the credit, as he owns, of 
Tonson ; who, having quarrelled with Addison, 
and not loving him, said, that when he laid 
down the secretary's office, he intended to take 
orders, and obtain a bishopric ; "for," said he, 
" I always thought him a priest in his heart." 

That Pope should have thought this conjec- 
ture of Tonson worth remembrance, is a proof, 
but indeed, so far as I have found, the only 
proof, that he retained some malignity from 
their ancient rivalry. Tonson pretended but to 
guess it ; no other mortal ever suspected it ; and 
Pope might have reflected, that a man who 
had been secretary of state in the ministry of 
Sunderland knew a nearer Avay to a bishopric 
than by defending religion or translating the 
" Psalms," 

It is related, that he had once a design to make 
an English Dictionary, and that he considered 
Dr. Tillotson as the writer of highest authori- 
ty. There was formerly sent to me by Mr. 
Locker, clerk of the Leathersellers' Company, 
who was eminent for curiosity and literature, 
a collection of examples collected from Tillot- 
son's works, as Locker said, by Addison. It 
came too late to be of use, so I inspected it but 
slightly, and remember it indistinctly. I 
thought the passages too short. 

Addison, however, did not conclude his life in 
peaceful studies ; but relapsed, when he was near 
his end, to a political dispute. 

It so happened that (1718-19) a controversy 



* Spence. 



t Ibid. 



164 



ADDISON. 



was agitated with great vehemence between those 
friends of long continuance, Addison and Steele. 
It may be asked, in the language of Homer, 
what power or what cause should set them at 
variance. The subject of their dispute was of 
great importance. The Earl of Sunderland pro- 
posed an act called " The Peerage Bill ;" by 
which the number of peers should be fixed, and 
the King restrained from any new creation of 
nobility, unless when an old family should be 
extinct. To this the Lords would naturally 
agree ; and th e King, who was yet little ac- 
quainted with his own prerogative, and, as is 
now well known, almost indifFerent to the pos- 
sessions of the Crown had been persuaded to 
consent. The only difficulty "was found among 
the Commons, who were not likely to approve 
the perpetual exclusion of themselves and their 
posterity. The bill therefore was eagerly op- 
posed, and among others by Sir Robert Wal- 
pole, whose speech was published. 

The Lords might think their dignity dimin- 
ished by improper advancements, and particu- 
larly by the introduction of twelve new peers 
at once," to produce a majority of tories in the 
last reign ; an act of authority violent enough, 
yet certainly legal, and by no means to be com- 
pared with that contempt of national right with 
which, some time afterwards, by the instiga- 
tion of whiggism, the Commons, chosen by the 
people for three years, chose themselves for 
seven. But, whatever might be the disposition 
of the Lords, the people had no wish to increase 
their power. The tendency of the bill, as 
Steele observed in a letter to the Earl of Ox- 
ford, was to introduce an aristocracy : for a 
majority in the House of Lords, so limited, 
would have been despotic and irresistible. 

To prevent this subversion of the ancient es- 
tablishment, Steele, whose pen readily seconded 
his political passions, endeavoured to alarm 
the nation, by a pamphlet called "The Plebeian." 
To this an answer was published by Addison 
under the title of " The Old Whig," in which 
it is not discovered that Steele was then known 
to be the advocate for the Commons. Steele 
replied by a second Plebeian ; and, whether by 
ignorance or by courtesy, confined himself to 
his question, without any personal notice of his 
opponent. Nothing hitherto was committed 
against the laws of friendship or proprieties of 
decency ; but controvertists cannot long retain 
their kindness for each other. The " Old 
Whig" answered the " Plebeian," and could 
not forbear some contempt of " little Dicky, 
whose trade it was to write pamphlets. " Dicky, 
however, did not lose bis settled veneration for 
nis friend ; but contented himself with quoting 
some lines of " Cato," which were at once de- 
tection and reproof. The bill was laid aside 
during that session; and Addison died before 
the next, in which its commitment was reject- 



ed by two hundred and sixty-five to one hundred 
and seventy-seven. 

Every reader surely must regret that these 
two illustrious friends, after so many years 
passed in confidence and endearment, in unity 
of interest, conformity of opinion, and fellow- 
ship of study, should finallypart in acrimonious 
opposition. Such a controversy was Bellum 
plusquam civile, as Lucan expresses it. Why 
could not faction find other advocates? but 
among the uncertainties of the human state, we 
are doomed to number the instability of friend' 
ship. 

Of this dispute I have little knowledge but 
from the " Biographia Britannica." The 
" Old Whig" is not inserted in Addison's 
works, nor is it mentioned by Tickell in his 
life ; why it was omitted, the biographers doubt- 
less give the true reason ; the fact was too 
recent, and those who had been heated in the 
contention were not yet cool. 
. The necessity of complying with times and 
of sparing persons is the great impediment of 
biography. History may be formed from per- 
manent monuments and records ; but lives can 
only be written from personal knowledge, which 
is growing every day less, and in a short time 
is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be 
immediately told; and when it might be told, 
it is no longer known. The delicate features 
of the mind, the nice discriminations of charac- 
ter, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are 
soon obliterated ; and it is surely better that 
caprice, obstinacy, frolic, and folly, however 
they might delight in the description, should be 
silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merri- 
ment and unseasonable detection, a pang should 
be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a 
friend. As the process of these narratives is 
now bringing me among my contemporaries, I 
begin to feel myself " walking upon ashes under 
which the fire is not extinguished," and coming 
to the time of which it will be proper rather to 
say " nothing that is false, than all that is true." 

The end of this useful life was now approach- 
ing. Addison had for some time been oppressed 
by shortness of breath, which was now aggra- 
vated by a dropsy ; and, finding his danger 
pressing, he prepared to die conformably to his 
own precepts and professions. 

During this lingering decay, he sent, as Pope 
relates,* a message by the Earl of Warwick to 
Mr. Gay, desiring to see him. Gay, who had 
not visited him for some time before, obeyed the 
summons, and found himself received with great 
kindness. The purpose for which the inter- 
view had been solicited was then discovered. 
i Addison told him, that he had injured him; 
but that, if he recovered, he would recompense 



* Spence. 



ADDISON. 



165 



him. What the injury was he did not explain ; 
nor did Gay ever know, but supposed that some 
preferment designed for him had, by Addison's 
intervention, been withheld. 

Lord Warwick was a young man of very ir- 
regular life, and perhaps of loose opinions. 
Addison, for whom he did not want respect, 
had very diligently endeavoured to reclaim him ; 
but his arguments and expostulations had no 
effect. One experiment, however, remained to 
be tried : when he found his life near its end, 
he directed the young lord to be called; and 
when he desired, with great tenderness, to hear 
his last injunctions, told him, " I have sent for 
you, that you may see how a Christian can 
die." What effect this awful scene had on the 
Earl, I know not : he likewise died himself in 
a short time. 

In Tickell's excellent " Elegy" on his friend 
are these lines : 

He taught us how to live ; and, oh ! too high 
The price of knowledge ! taught us how to die — 

in which he alludes, as he told Dr. Young, to 
this moving interview. 

Having given directions to Mr. Tickell for 
the publication of his works, and dedicated them 
on his death-bed to his friend Mr. Craggs, he 
died June 17, 1719, at Holland-house, leaving no 
child but a daughter. * 

Of his virtue it is a sufficient testimony that 
the resentment of party has transmitted no 
charge of any crime. He was not one of those 
who are praised only after death ; for his merit 
was so generally acknowledged, that Swift, hav- 
ing observed that his election passed without a 
contest, adds, that, if he proposed himself for 
king, he would hardly have been refused. 

His zeal for his party did not extinguish his 
kindness for the merit of his opponents ; ,when 
he was secretary in Ireland, he refused to in- 
termit his acquaintance with Swift. 

Of his habits, or external manners, nothing 
is so often mentioned as that timorous or sullen 
taciturnity which his friends called modesty by 
too mild a name. Steele mentions with great 
tenderness " that remarkable bashfulness, which 
is a cloak that hides and muffles merit;" and 
tells us, " that his abilities were covered only 
by modesty, which doubles the beauties which 
are seen, and gives credit and esteem to all that 
are concealed." Chesterfield affirms, that 
" Addison was the most timorous and awkward 
man that he ever saw. " And Addison, speak- 
ing of his own defieience in conversation, used 
to say of himself, that, with respect to intellec- 
tual "wealth, he could draw bills for a thousand 



• Who died at Bilton, in Warwickshire, at a very 
advanced age, in 1797. See Gent. Mag. vol. Ixvii. 
p. 256. 385.— N. 



pounds, though he had not a guinea in Lis 
pocket." 

That he wanted current coin for ready pay- 
ment, and by that want was often obstructed 
and distressed ; that he was often oppressed by 
an improper and ungraceful timidity, every tes- 
timony concurs to prove ; but Chesterfield's re- 
presentation is doubtless hyperbolical. That 
man cannot be supposed very inexpert in the 
arts of conversation and practice of life, who, 
without fortune or alliance, by his usefulness 
and dexterity, became secretary of state ; and 
who died at forty-seven, after having not only 
stood long in the highest rank of wit and litera- 
ture, but filled one of the most important offices 
of state. 

The time in which he lived had reason to 
lament his obstinacy of silence : " for he was," 
says Steele, " above all men in that talent called 
humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection, that 
I have often reflected, after a night spent with 
him apart from all the world, that I had had 
the pleasure of conversing with an intimate ac- 
quaintance of Terence and Catullus, who had 
all their wit and nature, heightened with humour 
more exquisite and delightful than any other 
man ever possessed." This is the fondness of a 
friend ; let us hear what is told us by a rival. 
" Addison's conversation,"* says Pope, " had 
something in it more charming than I have 
found in any other man. But this was only 
when familiar ; before strangers, or, perhaps, a 
single stranger, he preserved his dignity by a 
stiff silence. " 

This modesty was by no means inconsistent 
with a very high opinion of his own merit. He 
demanded to be the first name in modern wit; 
and, with Steele to echo him, used to depreciate 
Dryden, whom Pope and Congreve defended 
against them.f There is no reason to doubt 
that he suffered too much pain from the preva- 
lence of Pope's poetical reputation ; nor is it 
without strong reason suspected, that by some 
disingenuous acts he endeavoured to obstruct it : 
Pope was not the only man whom he insidiously 
injured, though the only man of whom he could 
be afraid. 

His own powers were such as might have 
satisfied him with conscious excellence. Of 
very extensive learning he has indeed given no 
proofs. He seems to have had small acquain- 
tance with the sciences, and to have read little 
except Latin and French ; but of the Latin 
poets his Dialogues on Medals show that he had 
perused the works with great diligence and skill. 
The abundance of his own mind left him little 
in need of adventitious sentiments; his wit 
always could suggest what the occasion demand- 
ed. He had read with critical eyes the impor- 
tant volume of human life, and knew the heart 



' Spence. 
Y 



+ Tonson and Spence. 



166 



ADDISON. 



of man, from the depths of stratagem to the sur- 
face of affectation. 

What he knew he could easily communicate. 
"This," says Steele, "was particular in this 
writer, that, when heJiad taken his resolution, 
or made his plan for what he designed to write, 
he would walk about a room, and dictate it into 
&nguage with as much freedom and ease as any 
one could write it down, and attend to the 
coherence and grammar of what he dictated." 

Pope,* who can be less suspected of favouring 
his memory, declares that he wrote very fluently, 
but was slow and scrupulous in correcting ; that 
many of his Spectators were written very fast, 
and sent immediately to the press; and that it 
seemed to be for his advantage not to have time 
for much revisal . 

*« He would alter," says Pope, "any thing to 
please his friends before publication ; but would 
not retouch his pieces afterwards ; and I believe 
not one word in ' Cato,' to which I made an ob- 
jection, was suffered to stand." 

The last line of " Cato" is Pope's, having been 
originally written, 

And oh ! 'twas this that ended Cato's life. 

Pope might have made more objections to the 
six concluding lines. In the first couplet the 
words "from hence" are improper; and the se- 
cond line is taken from Dryden's Virgil. Of 
the next couplet, the first verse, being included 
in the second, is therefore useless ; and in the 
third discord is made to produce strife. 

Of the course of Addison's familiar day, f be- 
fore his marriage, Pope has given a detail. He 
had in the house with him Budgell, and perhaps 
Philips. His chief companions were Steele, 
Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel 
Brett. "With one or other of these he always 
breakfasted. He studied all the morning, then 
dined at a tavern, and went afterwards to 
Button's. 

Button had been a servant in the Countess of 
Warwick's family, who, under the patronage of 
Addison, kept a coffee-house on the south side 
of Russell- street, about two doors from Covent- 
garden. Here it was that the wits of that time 
used to assemble. It is said, when Addison had 
suffered any vexation from the Countess, be 
withdrew the company from Button's house. 

From the coffee-house he went again to a tav- 
ern, where he often sat late, and drank too much 
wine. In the bottle discontent seeks for com- 
fort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for 
confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was 
first seduced to excess by the manumission which 
he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober 
hours. He that feels oppression from the pre- 
sence of those to whom he knows himself su- 
perior will desire to set loose his powers of con- 



.Spence. 



t Ibid. 



versation; and who that ever asked succours 
from Bacchus was able to preserve himself from 
being enslaved by his auxiliary ? 

Among those friends it was that Addison dis- 
played the elegance of his colloquial accomplish- 
ments, which may easily be supposed such as 
Pope represents them. The remark of Mande- 
ville, who, when he had passed an evening in 
his company, declared that he was a parson in a 
tie-wig, can detract little from his character ; he 
was always reserved to strangers, and was not 
incited to uncommon freedom by a character 
like that of Mandeville. 

From any minute knowlege of his familiar 
manners, the intervention of sixty years has now 
debarred us. Steele once promised Congreve 
and the public a complete description of his cha- 
racter ; but the promises of authors are like the 
vows of lovers. Steele thought no more on his 
design, or thought on it with anxiety that at 
last disgusted him, and left his friend in the 
hands of Tickell. 

One slight lineament of his character Swift 
has preserved. It was his practice, when he 
found any man invincibly wrong, to flatter his 
opinions by acquiescence, and sink him yet 
deeper in absurdity. This artifice of mischief 
was admired by Stella ; and Swift seems to ap- 
prove her admiration. 

His works will supply some information. It 
appears, from his various pictures of the world, 
that, with all his bashfulness, he had conversed 
with many distinct classes of men, had surveyed 
their ways with very diligent observation, and 
marked with great acuteness the effects of dif- 
ferent modes of life. He was a man in whose 
presence nothing reprehensible was out of dan- 
ger ; quick in discerning whatever was wrong 
or ridiculous, and not unwilling to expose it. 
" There are," says Steele, "in his writings ma- 
ny oblique strokes upon some of the wittiest men 
of the age." His delight was more to excite 
merriment than detestation ; and he detects fol- 
lies rather than crimes. 

If any judgment be made, from his books, of 
his moral character, nothing will be found but 
purity and excellence. Knowledge of mankind, 
indeed, less extensive than that of Addison, will 
show, that to write, and to live, are very differ- 
ent. Many who praise virtue do no more than 
praise it. Yet it is reasonable to believe that 
Addison's professions and practice were at no 
great variance, since, amidst that storm of fac- 
tion in which most of his life was passed, though 
hi.s station made him conspicuous, and his acti- 
vity made him formidable, the character given 
him by his friends was never contradicted by his 
enemies : of those with whom interest or opin- 
ion united him he had not only the esteem, but 
the kindness ; and of others, whom the violence 
of opposition drove against him, though he might 
lose the love, he retained the reverence. 



ADDISON. 



16? 



It is justly observed by Tickell, that he em- 
ployed wit on the side of virtue and religion.— 
He not only made the proper use of wit him- 
self, but.taught it to others ; and from his time 
It has been generally subservient to the cause of 
reason and of truth. He has dissipated the pre- 
judice that had long connected gayety with vice, 
and easiness of manners with laxity of princi- 
ples. He has restored virtue to its dignity, and 
taught innocence not to be ashamed. This is 
an el e Action of literary character, "above all 
Greek, above all Roman fame." No greater 
felicity can genius attain than that of having 
purified intellectual pleasure, separated mirth 
from indecency, and wit from licentiousness ; 
of having taught a succession of writers to bring 
elegance and gayety to the aid of goodness ; and, 
if I may use expressions yet more awful, of 
having "turned many to righteousness." 

Addison, in his life, and for some time after- 
wards, was considered by a greater part of 
readers as supremely excelling both in poetry 
and criticism. Part of his reputation may be 
properly ascribed to the advancement of his for- 
tune; when, as Swift observes, he became a 
statesman, and saw poets waiting at his levee, 
it was no wonder that praise was accumulated 
upon him. Much likewise may be more hon- 
nourably ascribed to his personal character : he 
who, if he had claimed it, might have obtained 
the diadem, was not likely to be denied the 
laurel. 

But time quickly puts an end to artificial and 
accidental fame ; and Addison is to pass through 
futurity protected only by his genius. Every 
name which kindness or interest once raised 
too high is in danger, lest the next age should, 
by the vengeance of criticism, sink it in the 
same proportion. A great writer has lately 
styled him " an indifferent poet and a worse 
critic." » 

His poetry is first to be considered ; of which 
it must be confessed that it has not often those 
felicities of diction which give lustre to senti- 
ments, or that vigour of sentiment that ani- 
mates diction : there is little of ardour, vehe- 
mence, or transport : there is very rarely the 
awfulness of grandeur, and not very often the 
splendour of elegance. He thinks justly; but 
he thinks faintly. This is his general charac- 
ter ; to which, doubtless, many single passages 
will furnish exception. 

Yet, if he seldom reaches supreme excellence, 
he rarely sinks into dulness, and is still more 
rarely entangled in absurdity. He did not 
trust his powers enough to be negligent. There 
is in most of his compositions a calmness and 
equability, deliberate and cautious, sometimes 
with little that delights, but seldom with any 
thing that offends. 

Of this kind seem to be his poems to Dryden, 
to Somers, and to the King. His " Ode on St. 



Cecilia" has been imitated by Pope, and has 
something in it of Dryden's vigour. Of his 
account of the English poets, he used to speak 
as " a poor thing ;' s * but it is not worse than 
his usual strain. He has said, not very judici- 
ously, in his character of Waller, 

Thy verse could show ev'n Cromwell's innocence; 
And compliment the storms that bore him hence. 
! had thy muse not come an age too soon 
But seen great Nassau on the British throne, 
How had his triumph glitterM in thy page! 

What is this but to say that he who could 
compliment Cromwell had been the proper poet 
for King William? Addison, however, never 
printed the piece. 

The letter from Italy has been always praised, 
but has never bee™ praised beyond its merit. It 
is more correct, with less appearance of labour, 
and more elegant, with less ambition of orna- 
ment, than any other of his poems. There is, 
however, one broken metaphor, of which notice 
may properly be taken: — 

Fired with that name — 
I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain, 
That longs to launch into a nobler strain. 

To bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea ; 
but why must she be bndled? because she longs 
to launch ; an act which was never hindered by 
a. bridle: and whither will she launch? into a 
nobler strain. She is in the first line a horse, in 
the second a boat ; and .the care of the poet is to 
keep his horse or his boat from singing. 

The next composition is the far-famed " Cam- 
paign," which Dr. Warton has termed a " Ga- 
zette in Rhyme," with harshness not often used 
by the good-nature of his criticism. Before a 
censure so severe is admitted, let us consider 
that war is a frequent subject of poetry, and 
then inquire who has described it with more 
justness and force. Many of our own writers 
tried their powers upon this year of victory ; 
yet Addison's is confessedly the best perform- 
ance : his poem is the work of a man not blind- 
ed by the dust of learning ; his images are not 
borrowed merely from books. The superiority 
which he confers upon his hero is not personal 
prowess, and " mighty bone," but deliberate 
intrepidity, a calm command of his passions, 
and the power of consulting his own mind in 
the midst of danger. The rejection and con- 
tempt of fiction is rational and manly. 

It may be observed that the last line is imi- 
tated by Pope : 

Marlborough's exploits appear divinely bright — 
Raised of themselves their genuine charms they 

boast, 
And those that paint them truest, praise them most. 



* Spence 



168 



ADDISON. 



This Pope had in his thoughts ; but, not know- 
ing how to use what was not his own, he spoiled 
the thought when he had boiTowed it : 

The w< r-sung woes shall soothe my pensive ghost ; 
He best can pain>,* them who shall feel them mott. 

Martial exploits may be painted; perhaps woes 
may be painted; but they are surely not painted 
by being ivell-sung : it is not easy to paint in 
song, or to sing in colours. 

No passage in the "Campaign" has been 
more often mentioned than the simile of the 
angel, which is said in the " Tatler" to be " one 
of the noblest thoughts that ever entered into 
the heart of man," and is therefore worthy of 
attentive consideration. Let it be first in- 
quired whether it be a simile. A poetical simile 
is the discovery of likeness between two actions, 
in their general nature dissimilar, or of causes 
terminating by different operations in some re- 
semblance of effect. But the mention of an- 
other like consequence from a like cause, or of a 
like performance by a like agency, is not a si- 
mile, but an exemplification. It is not a simile 
to say that the Thames waters fields, as the Po 
waters fields ; or that as Hecla vomits flames in 
Iceland, so iEtna vomits flames in Sicily. 
When Horace says of Pindar, that he pours his 
violence and rapidity of verse, as a river swoln 
with rain rushes from the mountain ; or of him- 
self, that his genius wanders in quest of poeti- 
cal decorations, as the bee "wanders to collect 
honey ; he, in either case, produces a simile ; 
the mind is impressed with the resemblance of 
things generally unlike, as unlike as intellect 
and body. But if Pindar had been described as 
writing with the copiousness and grandeur of 
Homer, or Horace had told that he reviewed 
and finished his own poetry with the same care 
as Isocrates polished his orations, instead of si- 
militude, he would have exhibited almost iden- 
tity; he would have given the same portraits 
with different names. In the poem now ex- 
tmined, when the English are represented as 
gaining a fortified pass, by repetition of attack, 
md perseverance of resolution, their obstinacy 
<f courage and vigour of onset is well illustrated 
•>y the sea that breaks, with incessant battery, 
the dikes of Holland. This is a simile ; but 
when Addison, having celebrated the beauty of 
Marlborough's person, tells us, that " Achilles 
thus was formed with every grace," here is no 
simile, but a mere exemplification. A simile 
may be compared to lines converging at a point, 
and is more excellent as the lines approach from 
greater distance; an exemplification maybe con- 
sidered as two parallel lines which run on to- 
gether without approximation, never far sepa- 
rated, and never joined. 

* '« Paint" means (says Dr. Wartonl express or 
describe them. — C. 



Marlborough is so like the angel in the poem, 
that the action of both is almost the same, and 
performed by both in the same manner. Marl- 
borough " teaches the battle to rage ;" the 
angel "directs the storm:" Marlborough is 
"unmoved in peaceful thought;" the angel is 
" calm and serene :" Marlborough stands " un- 
moved amidst the shock of hosts;" the angel 
rides " calm in the whirlwind." The lines 
on Marlborough are just and noble ; but the 
simile gives almost the same images a second 
time. 

But perhaps this thought, though hardly a 
simile, was remote from vulgar conceptions, 
and required great labour of research or dex- 
terity of application. Of this Dr. Madden, a 
name which Ireland ought to honour, once gave 
me his opinion. " If I had set," said he, " ten 
school-boys to write on the battle of Blenheim, 
and eight had brought me the angel, I should 
not have been surprised." 

The opera of " Rosamond," though it is sel- 
dom mentioned, is one of the first of Addison's 
compositions. The subject is well chosen, the fic- 
tion is pleasing, and the praise of Marlborough, 
for which the scene gives an opportunity, 
is, what perhaps every human excellence must 
be, the product of good- luck, improved by ge- 
nius. The thoughts are sometimes great, and 
sometimes tender ; the versification is easy and 
gay. There is doubtless some advantage in the 
shortness of the lines, which there is little 
temptation to load with expletive epithets. 
The dialogue seems commonly better than the 
songs. The two comic characters of Sir Trusty 
and Grideline, though of no great value, are 
yet such as the poet intended.* Sir Trusty's 
account of the death of Rosamond is, I think, 
too grossly absurd. The whole drama is airy 
and elegant ; engaging in its process, and pleas- 
ing in its conclusion. If Addison had cultivat- 
ed the lighter parts of poetry, he would proba- 
bly have excelled. 

The tragedy of " Cato," which, contrary to 
the rule observed in selecting the works of other 
poets, has by the weight of its character forced 
its way into the late collection, is unquestionably 
the noblest production of Addison's genius. 
Of a work so much read it is difficult to say any 
thing new. About things on which the public 
thinks long, it commonly attains to think right; 
and of " Cato" it has been not unjustly deter- 
mined, that it is rather a poem in dialogue than 
a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments 
in elegant language, than a representation of 
natural affections, or of any state probable or 
possible in human life. Nothing here " excites 
or assuages emstion:" here is "no magical 
power of raising fantastic terror or wild 



* But, according to Dr. Warton, 
have intended." — C. 



ought not to 



ADDISON. 



169 



anxiety." The events are expec ted without so- 
licitude, and are remembered without joy or 
sorrow. Of the agents we have no care ; we 
consider not what they are doing or what they 
are suffering ; we wish only to know what they 
have to say. Cato is a being above our solici- 
tude ; a man, of whom the gods take care, and 
whom we leave to their care with heedless con- 
fidence. To the rest neither gods nor men can 
have much attention ; for there is not one 
amongst them that strongly attracts either affec- 
tion or esteem. But they are made the "hides 
of such sentiments and such expression, that 
there is scarcely a scene in the play which the 
reader does not wish to impress upon his memory. 

When " Cato" was shown to Pope,* he ad- 
vised the Author to print it, without any the- 
atrical exhibition; supposing that it would be 
read more favourably than heard. Addison de- 
clared himself of the same opinion; but urged 
the importunity of his friends for its appearance 
on the stage. The emulation of parties made 
it successful beyond expectation; and its success 
has introduced or confirmed among us the use 
of dialogue too declamatory, or of unaffecting 
elegance, and chill philosophy. 

The universality of applause, however it 
might quell the censure of common mortals, 
had no other effect than to harden Dennis in 
fixed dislike: but his dislike was not merely 
capricious. He found and showed many faults; 
he showed them indeed with anger, but he 
found them with acuteness, such as ought to 
rescue his criticism from oblivion; though, at 
last, it will have no other life than it derives 
from the work which it endeavours to oppress. 

Why he pays no regard to the opinion of the 
audience, he gives his reason, by remarking, 
that, 

" A deference is to be paid to a general ap- 
plause, when it appears that the applause is 
natural and spontaneous ; but that little regard 
is to be had to it, when it is affected and artifi- 
cial. Of all the tragedies which in his memory 
have had vast and violent runs, not one has 
been excellent, few have been tolerable, most 
have been scandalous. When a poet writes a 
tragedy, who knows he has judgment, and who 
feels he has genius, that poet presumes upon his 
own merit, and scorns to make a cabal. That 
people come coolly to the representation of such 
a tragedy, without any violent expectation, or 
delusive imagination, or invincible preposses- 
sion ; that such an audience is liable to receive 
impressions which the poem shall naturally 
make on them, and to judge by their own rea- 
son, and their own judgments, and that reason 
and judgment are calm and serene, not formed 
by nature to make proselytes, and to control 
and lord it over the imaginations of others. 

* Spence. 



But that when an author writes a tragedy, who 
knows he has neither genius nor judgment, he 
has recourse to the making a party, and he en- 
deavours to make up in industry what is want- 
ing in talent, and to supply by poetical craft the 
absence of poetical art ; that such an author is 
humbly contented to raise men's passions by a 
plot without doors, since he despairs of doing it 
by that which he brings upon the stage. That 
party, and passion, and prepossession, are cla- 
morous and tumultuous things, and so much 
the more clamorous and tumultuous by how 
much the more erroneous : that they domineer 
and tyrannize over the imaginations of persons 
who want judgment, and sometimes too of those 
who have it ; and like a fierce and outrageous 
torrent, bear down all opposition before them." 

He then condemns the neglect of poetical jus- 
tice ; which is always one of his favourite prin- 
ciples. 

" It is certainly the duty of every tragic poet, 
by the exact distribution of poetical justice, to 
imitate the Divine dispensation, and to incul- 
cate a particular providence. It is true, indeed, 
upon the stage of the world, the wicked some- 
times prosper, and the guiltless suffer. But 
that is permitted by the Governor of the world, 
to show, from the attribute of his infinite jus- 
tice, that there is a compensation in futurity, to 
prove the immortality of the human soul, and 
the certainty of future rewards and punish- 
ments. But the poetical persons in tragedy ex- 
ist no longer than the reading or the representa- 
tion ; the whole extent of their enmity is cir- 
cumscribed by those; and, therefore, during 
that reading or representation, according to 
their merits or demerits, they must be punished 
or rewarded. If this is not done, there is no 
impartial distribution of poetical justice, no in- 
structive lecture of a particular providence, and 
no imitation of the Divine dispensation. And 
yet the author of this tragedy does not only run 
counter to this, in the fate of his principal char- 
acter; but every where, throughout it, makes 
virtue suffer, and vice triumph; for not only 
Cato is vanquished by Caesar, but the treachery 
and perfidiousness of Syphax prevail over the 
honest simplicity and the credulity of Juba: 
and the sly subtlety and dissimulation of Por- 
tius over the generous frankness and openheart- 
edness of Marcus." 

Whatever pleasure there may be in seeing 
crimes punished and virtue rewarded, yet, since 
wickedness often prospers in real life, the poet 
is certainly at liberty to give it prosperity on 
the stage. For if poetry has an imitation of 
reality, how are its laws broken by exhibiting 
the world in its true form? The stage may 
sometimes gratify our wishes; but, if it be truly 
the " mirror of life," it ought to show us some- 
times what we are to expect. 

Dennis objects to the characters, that they are 



170 



ADDISON. 



not natural, or reasonable; but as heroes and 
heroines are not beings that are seen every day, 
it is hard to find upon what principles their 
conduct shall be tried. It is, however, not use- 
less to consider what he says of the manner in 
which Cato receives the account of his son's 
death. 

" Nor is the grief of Cato, in the fourth act, 
one jot more in nature than that of his son and 
Lucia in the third. Cato receives the news of 
his son's death not only with dry eyes, but with 
a sort of satisfaction ; and in the same page 
sheds tears for the calamity of his country, and 
does the same thing in the next page upon the 
bare apprehension of the danger of his friends. 
Now, since the love of one'scountry is the love 
of one's countrymen, as I have shown upon an- 
other occasion, I desire to ask these questions : 
Of all our countrymen, which do we love most, 
those whom we know, or those whom we know 
not? And of those whom we know, which do 
we cherish most, our friends or our enemies ? 
And of our friends, which are the dearest to us, 
those who are related to us, or those who are 
not ? And of all our relations, for which have 
we most tenderness, for those who are near 
to us, or for those who are remote ? And of our 
near relations, which are the nearest, and con- 
sequently the dearest to us, our offspring, or 
others ? Our offspring most certainly ; as Na- 
ture, or, in other words, Providence, has wisely 
contrived for the preservation of mankind. 
Now, does it not follow front what has been 
said, that for a man to receive the news of his 
son's death with dry eyes, and to weep at the 
same time for the calamities of his country, is a 
wretched affectation, and a miserable inconsis- 
tency ? Is not that, in plain English, to receive 
with dry eyes the news of the deaths of those 
for whose sake our country is a name so dear to 
us, and at the same time to shed tears for those 
for whose sakes our country is not a name so 
dear to us ?" 

But this formidable assailant is less resistible 
when he attacks the probability of the action, 
and the reasonableness of the plan. Every 
critical reader must remark, that Addison has, 
with a scrupulosity almost unexampled on the 
English stage, confined himself in time to a 
single day, and in place to rigorous unity. The 
scene never changes, and the whole action of the 
play passes in the great hall of Cato's house at 
Utica. Much therefore is done in the hall, for 
which any other place would be more fit ; and 
this impropriety affords Dennis many hints of 
merriment, and opportunities of triumph. The 
passage is long; but as such disquisitions are 
not common, and the objections are skilfully 
formed and vigorously urged, those who delight 
in critical controversy will not think it tedious. 

" Upon the departure of Portius, Sempronius 
makes but one soliloquy, and immediately in 



comes Syphax, and then the two politicians are 
at it immediately. They lay their heads to- 
gether, with their snuff-boxes in their hands, as 
Mr. Bayes has it, and feague it away. But, in 
the midst of that wise scene, Syphax seems to 
give a seasonable caution to Sempronius : 

Syph. Bat is it true, Sempronius, that j r our senate 
Is called together? Gods ! thou must be cautious ; 

Cato has piercing eyes. 

" There is a great deal of caution shown in- 
deed, in meeting in a governor's own hall to 
carry on their plot against him. "Whatever 
opinion they have of his eyes, I suppose they 
have none of his ears, or they would never have 
talked at this foolish rate so near : 

Gods! thou must be cautious. 

" Oh ! yes, very cautious ; for if Cato should 
over-hear you, and turn you off for politicians, 
Caesar would never take you ; no, Caesar would 
never take you. 

" When Cato, Act II. turns the senators out 
of the hall, upon pretence of acquainting Juba 
with the result of their debates, he appears to 
me to do a thing which is neither reasonable nor 
civil. Juba might certainly have better been 
made acquainted with the result of that debate 
in some private apartment of the palace. But 
the Poet was driven upon this absurdity to make 
way for another ; and that is, to give Juba an 
opportunity to demand Marcia of her father. 
But the quarrel and rage of Juba and Syphax, 
in the same Act; the invectives of Syphax 
against the Romans and Cato ; the advice that 
he gives Juba, in her father's hall, to bear away 
Marcia by force ; and his brutal and clamorous 
rage upon his refusal, and at a time when Cato 
was scarcely out of sight, and perhaps not out 
of hearing, at least some of his guards or domes- 
tics must necessarily be supposed to be within 
hearing ; is a thing that is so far from being 
probable, that it is hardly possible. 

" Sempronius, in the second Act, comes back 
once more in the same morning to the governor's 
hall, to carry on the conspiracy with Syphax 
against the governor, his country, and his family ; 
which is so stupid that it is below the wisdom 
of the O — 's, the Mac's, an I the Teague's ; even 
Eustace Cummins himself would never have 
gone to Justice-hall, to have conspired against 
the government. If officers at Portsmouth should 
lay their heads together, in order to the carrying 
off* J — G — 's niece or daughter, would they 



* The person meant by the initials J. G. is Sir John 
Gibson, lieutenant-governor of Portsmouth, in the 
year lriO, and afterwards. He M r as much beloved 
in the army, and by the common soldiers called 
Johnny Gibson. — H. 



ADDISON. 



171 



meet in J— G — 's hall, to carry on that conspi- 
racy? There would he no necessity for their 
meeting there, at least till they came to the exe- 
cution of their plot, hecause there would be other 
places to meet in. There would he no proba- 
bility that they should meet there, because there 
would be places more private and more com- 
modious. Now there ought to be nothing in a 
tragical action but what is necessary or pro- 
bable. 

" But treason is not the only thing that is car- 
ried on in this hall ; that, and love, and philoso- 
phy, take their turns in it, without any manner 
of necessity or probability occasioned by the ac- 
tion, as duly and as regularly, without interrupt- 
ing one another, as if there were a triple league 
between them, and a mutual agreement that each 
should give place to, and make way for, the 
other, in a due and orderly succession. 

" We now come to the third Act. Sempron- 
ius, in this Act, comes into the governor's hall, 
with the leaders of the mutiny : but, as soon as 
Cato is gone, Sempronius, who but just before 
had acted like an unparallelled knave, discovers 
himself, like an egregious fool, to be an accom- 
plice in the conspiracy. 

Semp. Know, villains, when such paltry slaves pre- 
sume 
To mis in treason, if the plot succeeds, 
They're thrown neglected by ; but, if it fails, 
They're sure to die like dogs, as you shall do. 
Here, take these factious monsters, drag them forth 
To sudden death. — 

" It is true, indeed, the second leader says, 
there are none there but friends ; but is that 
possible at such a juncture? Can a parcel of 
rogues attempt to assassinate the governor of a 
town of war, in his own house, in mid-day ? 
and, after they are discovered, and defeated, can 
there be none near them but friends ? Is it not 
plain from these words of Sempronius, » 

Here, take these factious monsters, drag them forth 
To sudden death — 

and from the entrance of the guards upon the 
words of command, that those guards wei*e with- 
in ear-shot? Behold Sempronius then palpa- 
bly discovered. How comes it to pass, then, 
that instead of being hanged up with the rest, 
he remains secure in the governor's hall, and 
there carries on his conspiracy against the go- 
vernment, the third time in the same day, with 
his old comrade Syphax, who enters at the same 
time that the guards are carrying away the 
leaders, big with the news of the defeat of Sem- 
pronius ; though where he had his intelligence 
so soon is difficult to imagine? And now the 
reader may expect a very extraordinary scene ; 
there is not abundance of spirit indeed, nor a 
great deal of passion, but there is wisdom more 
than enough to supply all defects. 



Syph. Our first design, my friend, has proved 
abortive ; 
Still there remains an after-game to play : 
My troops are mounted, their Numidian steeds 
Snuff up the winds, and long to scour the desert. 
Let but Sempronius lead us in our flight, 
We'll force the gate, where Marcus keeps his guard, 
And hew down all that would oppose our passage : 
A day will bring us into Caesar's camp. 

Semp. Confusion ! I have failed of half my pur- 
pose ; 
Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind. 

Well ! but though he tells us the half purpose he 
has failed of, he does not tell us the half that he 
has carried. But what does he mean by 

Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind 1 

He is now in her own house ! and we have nei- 
ther seen her, nor heard of her, any where else 
since the play began. But now let us hear Sy- 
phax : 

What hinders then, but that you find her out, 
And hurry her away by manly force 1 

But what does old Syphax mean by finding her 
out? They talk as if she were as hard to be 
found as a hare in a frosty morning. 

Semp. But how to gain admission! 

Oh ! she is found out then, it seems. 

But how to gain admission ! for access 

Is given to none but Juba and her brothers. 

But, raillery apart, why access to Juba! For 
he was owned and received as a lover neither by 
the father nor by the daughter. Well ! but let 
that pass. Syphax puts Sempronius out of pain 
immediately ; and, being a Numidian abound- 
ing in wiles, supplies him Avith a stratagem 
for admission, that, I believe, is a non-par - 
eille. 

Syph. Thou shalt have Juba's dress, and Juba's 
guards. 
The doors will open when Numidia's prince 
Seems to appear before them. 

" Sempronius is, it seems, to pass for Juba 
in full day at Cato's house, where they were 
both so very well known, by having Juba's dress 
and his guards ; as if one of the marshals of 
France could pass for the Duke of Bavaria at 
noon-day, at Versailles, by having his dress and 
liveries. But how does Syphax pretend to help 
Sempronius to young Juba's dress ? Does he 
serve him in a double capacity, as a general and 
master of his wardrobe? But why Juba's 
guards ? For the devil of any guards has Juba 
appeared with yet. Well! though this is a 
mighty politic invention, jet, methinks, they 



172 



ADDISON. 



might have done without it ; for, since the ad- 
vioe that Syphax gave to Sempronious was 

To hurry her away by manly force ; 

in my opinion, the shortest and likeliest way of 
coming at the lady was by demolishing, instead 
of putting on an impertinent disguise to circum- 
vent two or three slaves. But Sempronius, it 
seems, is of another opinion. He extols to the 
skies the invention of old Syphax : 

Semp. Heavens ! what a thought was there ! 

" Now I appeal to the reader if I have not 
been as good as my word. Did I not tell him, 
that I would lay before him a very wise scene ? 

" But now let us lay before the reader that 
part of the scenery of the fourth Act which may 
show the absurdities which the Author has run 
into through the indiscreet observance of the 
unity of place. I do not remember that Aris- 
totle has said any thing expressly concerning the 
unity of place. It is true, implicitly, he has 
said enough in the rules which he has laid down 
for the chorus. For, by making the chorus an 
essential part of tragedy, and by bringing it on 
the stage immediately after the opening of the 
scene, and retaining it till the very catastrophe, 
he has so determined and fixed the place of ac- 
tion, that it was impossible for an author on the 
Grecian stage to break through that unity. I 
am of opinion, that if a modern tragic poet can 
preserve the unity of place without destroying 
the probability of the. incidents, it is always best 
for him to do it ; because, by the preserving of 
that unity, as we have taken notice above, he 
adds grace, and clearness, and comeliness, to the 
representation. But since there are no express 
rules about it, and we are under no compulsion 
to keep it, since we have no chorus as the Gre- 
cian poet had, if it cannot be preserved without 
rendering the greater part of the incidents un- 
reasonable and absurd, and perhaps sometimes 
monstrous, it is certainly better to break it. 

" Now comes bully Sempronius, comically 
accoutred and equipped with his Numidian dress 
and his Numidian guards. Let the reader at- 
tend to him with all his ears ; for the words of 
the wise are precious : 



Semp. The deer is lodged, 
covert. 



'ye track'd her to her 



" Now I would fain know why this deer is 
said to be lodged, since we have heard not one 
word, since the play began, of her being at all 
out of harbour ; and if we consider the discourse 
with which she and Lucia begin the Act, we 
have reason to believe that they had hardly been 
talking of such matters in the street. However, 
to pleasure Sempronirs, let us suppose, for once, 
that the deer is lodged. 

The deer is lodg'd, I've track'd her to her covert. 



" If he had seen her in the open field, what 
occasion had he to track her, when he had so 
many Numidian dogs at his heels, which, with 
one halloo, he might have set upon her haunch- 
es ? If he did not see her in the open field, how 
could he possibly track her ? If he had seen her 
in the street, why did he not set upon her in the 
street, since through the street she must be car- 
ried at last ? Now here, instead of having his 
thoughts upon his business and upon the present 
danger; instead of meditating and contriving 
how he shall pass with his mistress through the 
southern gate, (where her brother Marcus is 
upon the guard, and where he would certainly 
prove an impediment to him,) which is the Ro- 
man word for the baggage; instead of doing 
this, Sempronius is entertaining himself with 
whimsies : 

Semp. How will the young Numidian rave to see 
His mistress lost ! If aught could glad my soul, 
Beyond th' enjoyment of so bright a prize, 
'Twould be to torture that young, gay barbarian. 
But, hark ! what noise ! Death to my hopes ! 'tis he, 
'Tis Juba's self.' There is but one way left ! 
He must be murder'd, and a passage cut 
Through those his guards. 

" Pray, what are c those his guards ?' I 
thought, at present, that Juba's guards had been 
Sempronius's tools, and had been dangling after 
his heels. 

" But now let us sum up all these absurdities 
together. Sempronius goes at noon-day, in Ju- 
ba's clothes and with Juba's guards, to Cato's 
palace, in order to pass for Juba, in a place 
where they were both so very well known ; he 
meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him 
with his own guards. Upon the guards appear- 
ing a little bashful, he threatens them : 

Hah ! Dastards do ycu tremble ! 

Or act like men ; or, by yon azure heaven — 

" But the guards, still remaining restive, 
Sempronius himself attacks Juba, while each of 
the guards is representing Mr. Spectator's sign 
of the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by 
Sempronius's threats. Juba kills Sempronius. 
and takes his own aiemy prisoners, and carries 
them in triumph away to Cato. Now I would 
fain know if any part of Mr. Bayes's tragedy 
is so full of absurdity as this ? 

" Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia 
and Marcia come in. The question is, why no 
men come in upon hearing the noise of swords 
in the governor's hall ? Where was the gover- 
nor himself? Where were his guards ? Where 
were his servants ? Such an attempt as this, so 
near the person of a governor of a place of war, 
was enough to alarm the whole garrison ; and 
yet, for almost half an hour after Sempronius 
was killed, we find none of those appear who 
were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed ; 
and the noise of swords is made to draw only 



ADDISON. 



173 



two poor women thither, who were most cer- 
tain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and 
Marcia's coming in, Lucia appears in all the 
symptoms of an hysterical gentlewoman : 

Luc. Sure 'twas the clash of swords! my troubled 
heart 
Is so cast down, and sunk amidst its sorrows, 
It throbs with fear, and aches at every sound ! 

And immediately her old whimsy returns upon 
her: 

- O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake — 
I die away with horror at the thought. 

She fancies that there can be no cutting of 
throats, but it must be for her. If this is tra- 
gical, I would fain know what is comical. 
Well ! upon this they spy the body of Sempro- 
nius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit, it 
seems, takes him for Juba ; for, says she, 

The face is muffled up within the garment. 

" Now, how a man could fight, and fall with 
his face muffled up in his garment, is, I think, 
a little hard to conceive ! Besides, Juba, before 
he killed him, knew him to be Sempronius. It 
was not by his garment that he knew this ; it 
was by his face then : his face therefore was 
not muffled. Upon seeing this man with his 
muffled face, Marcia falls a-raving ; and, own- 
ing her passion for the supposed defunct, begins 
to make his funeral oration. Upon which 
Juba enters listening, 1 suppose on tip- toe ; for 
I cannot imagine how any one can enter listen- 
ing in any other posture. I would fain know 
how it comes to pass, that during all this time 
he had sent nobody, no, not so much as a can- 
dle-snuffer, to take away the dead body of Sem- 
pronius. Well ! but let us regard him listen- 
ing. Having left his apprehension behinfl him, 
he, at first, applies what Marcia says to Sem- 
pronius. But finding at last, with much ado, 
that he himself is the happy man, he quits his 
eve-dropping, and discovers himself just time 
enough to prevent his being cuckolded by a dead 
man, of whom the moment before he had ap- 
peared so jealous; and greedily intercepts the 
bliss which was fondly designed for one who 
could not be the better for it. But here I must 
ask a question : how comes Juba to listen here, 
who had not listened before throughout the 
play? Or how comes he to be the only person 
of this tragedy who listens, when love and trea- 
son were so often talked in so public a place as 
a hall? I am afraid the Author was driven 
upon all these absurdities only to introduce 
this miserable mistake of Marcia, which, after 
all, is much below the dignity of tragedy, as 
any thing is which is the effect or result of 
tr«ck. 

" But let _ us come to the scenery of the fifth 



Act, Cato appears first upon the scene, sitting 
in a thoughtful posture : in his hand Plato's 
treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, a drawn 
sword on the table by him. Now let us con- 
sider the place in which this sight is presented 
to us. The place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let 
us suppose, that any one should place himself 
in this posture, in the midst of one of our halls 
in London ; that he should appear solus in a 
sullen posture, a drawn sword on the table by 
him; in his hand Plato's treatise on the Im- 
mortality of the Soul, translated lately by Ber- 
nard Lintot : I desire the reader to consider, 
whether such a person as this would pass, with 
them who beheld him, for a great patriot, a 
great philosopher, or a general, or some whim- 
sical person, who fancied himself all these ? and 
whether the people, who belonged to the family, 
would think that such a person had a design 
upon their midriffs or his own ? 

" In short, that Cato should sit long enough 
in the aforesaid posture, in the midst of this 
large hall, to read oA'er Plato's treatise on the 
Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of 
two long hours ; that he should propose to him- 
self to be private there upon that occasion ; that 
he should be angry with his son for intruding 
there ; then, that he should leave this hall upon 
the pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal 
wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought 
back into that hall to expire, purely to show his 
good-breeding, and save his friends the trouble 
of coming up to his bedchamber ; all this ap- 
pears to me to be improbable, incredible, im- 
possible." 

Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as 
Dryden expresses it, perhaps " too much horse- 
play in his raillery ;" but if his jests are coarse, 
his arguments are strong. Yet, as we love bet- 
ter to be pleased than be taught, " Cato" is read 
and the critic is neglected. 

Flushed with consciousness of these detec- 
tions of absurdity in the conduct, he after- 
wards attacked the sentiments, of Cato ; but he 
then amused himself with petty cavils and mi- 
nute objections. 

Of Addison's smaller poems, no particular 
mention is necessary ; they have little that can 
employ or require a critic. The parallel of the 
princes and gods, in his verses to Kneller, is of- 
ten happy, but is too well known to be quoted. 

His translations, so far as I have compared 
them, want the exactness of a scholar. That 
he understood his authors cannot be doubted ; 
but his versions will not teach others to under- 
stand them, being too licentiously paraphrasti- 
cal. They are, however, for the most part, 
smooth and easy; and, what is the first excel- 
lence of a translator, such as may be read with 
pleasure by those who do not know the ori- 
ginals. 
Z 



174 



ADDISON. 



His poetry is polished and pure ; the product 
of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but 
not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence. 
He has sometimes a striking line, or a shining 
paragraph ; but in the whole he is warm rather 
than fervid, and shows more dexterity than 
strength. He was however one of our earliest 
examples of correctness. 

The versification which he had learned from 
Dryden he debased rather than refined. His 
rhymes are often dissonant ; in his " Georgic" 
he admits broken lines. He uses both triplets 
and Alexandrines, but triplets more frequent- 
ly in his translations than his other works. 
The mere structure of verses seems never to 
have engaged much of his care. But his lines 
are very smooth in " Rosamond," and too 
smooth in " Cato." 

• Addison is now to be considered as a critic ; 
a name which the present generation is scarcely 
wiUing to allow him. His criticism is con- 
demned as tentative or experimental, rather than 
scientific; and he is considered as deciding by 
taste* rather than by principles. 

It is not uncommon for those who have 
grown wise by the labour of others to add a 
little of their own, and overlook their masters. 
Addison is now despised by some who perhaps 
would never have seen his defects, but by the 
lights which he afforded them. That, he always 
wrote as he would think it necessary to write 
now, cannot be affirmed : his instructions were 
such as the characters of his readers made pro- 
per. That general knowledge which now cir- 
culates in common talk was in his time rarely 
to be found. Men not professing learning were 
not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female 
world, any acquaintance with books was dis- 
tinguished only to be censured. His purpose 
was to infuse literary curiosity, by gentle and 
unsuspected conveyance, into the gay, the idle, 
and the wealthy ; he therefore presented know- 
ledge in the most alluring form, not lofty and 
austere, but accessible and familiar. When he 
showed them their defects, he showed them 
likewise that they might be easily supplied. 
His attempt succeeded ; inquiry was awakened, 
and comprehension expanded. An emulation 
of intellectual elegance was excited ; and, from 
this time to our own, life has been gradually 
exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged. 

Dryden had, not many years before, scattered 
criticism over his prefaces with very little par- 
simony; but though he sometimes condescended 
to be somewhat familiar, his manner was in 
general too scholastic for those who had yet their 
rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to 
understand their master. His observations 
were framed rather for those that were learning 
to write, than for those that read only to talk. 

• Taste mast decide. Warton. — C. 



An instructor like Addison was now wanting, 
whose remarks, being superficial, might be 
easily understood, and being just, might pre- 
pare the mind for more attainments. Had he 
presented " Paradise Lost" to the public with 
all the pomp of system and severity of science, 
the criticism would perhaps have been admired 
and the poem still have been neglected ; but by 
the blandishments of gentleness and facility he 
has made Milton a universal favourite, with 
whom readers of every class think it necessary 
to be pleased. 

He descended now and then to lower disqui- 
sitions ; and by a serious display of the beauties 
of " Chevy-Chase," exposed himself to the ri- 
dicule of Wagstaffe, who bestowed a like pom- 
pous character on " Tom Thumb ;" and to the 
contempt of Dennis, who, considering the fun- 
damental position of his criticism, that " Chevy- 
Chase" pleases, and ought to please, because it 
is natural, observes, that " there is a way of 
deviating from nature, by bombast or tumour, 
which soars above nature, and enlarges images 
beyond their real bulk; by affectation, which 
forsakes nature in quest of something unsuita- 
ble ; and by imbecility, which degrades nature 
by faintness and diminution, by obscuring its 
appearances, and weakening its effects." In 
" Chevy-Chase" there is not much of either 
bombast or affectation ; but there is chill and 
lifeless imbecility. The story cannot possibly 
be told in a manner that shall make less im- 
pression on the mind. 

Before the profound observers of the present 
race repose too securely on the consciousness of 
their superiority to Addison, let them consider 
his Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found 
specimens of criticism sufficiently subtle and 
refined : let them peruse likewise his " Essays 
on Wit" and on the " Pleasures of Imagina- 
tion," in which he founds art on the base of 
nature, and draws the principles of invention 
from dispositions inherent in the mind of man 
with skill and elegance,* such as his contemners 
will not easily attain. 

As a describer of life and manners, he must 
be allowed to stand perhaps the first of the first 
rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes, 
is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as 
to give the grace of novelty to domestic scenes 
and daily occurrences. He never " outsteps the 
modesty of nature," nor raises merriment or 
wonder by the violation of truth. His figures 
neither divert by distortion nor amaze by ag- 
gravation. He copies life with so much fidelity 
that he can be hardly said to invent ; yet his 
exhibitions have an air so much original, that it 
is difficult to suppose them not merely the pro- 
duct of imagination. 

As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently 

* Far, in Dr. Warton'o opinion, beyond Dryden. — C 



HUGHES. 



175 



followed. His religion has nothing in it en- 
thusiastic or superstitious ; he appears neither 
weakly credulous nor wantonly sceptical; his 
morality is neither dangerously lax nor imprac- 
ticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy 
and all the cogency of argument are employed 
to recommend to the reader his real interest, the 
care of pleasing the Author of his being. Truth 
is shown sometimes as the phantom of a vision ; 
sometimes appears half- veiled in an allegory; 
sometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy ; 
and sometimes steps forth in the confidence of 
reason. She wears a thousand dresses, and iu 
all is pleasing. 

Mille habet crnatus, mille dectnter habet. 

His prose is the model of the middle style ; on 
grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not 
grovelling ; pure without scrupulosity, and ex- 
act without apparent elaboration ; always equable 
and always easy, without glowing words or 



pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from 
his track to snatch a grace : he seeks no ambi- 
tious ornaments and tries no hazardous innova- 
tions. His page is always luminous, but never 
blazes in unexpected splendour. 

It was apparently his principal endeavour to 
avoid all harshness and severity of diction ; he is 
therefore sometimes verbose in his transitions 
and connections, and sometimes descends too 
much to the language of conversation ; yet if his 
language had been less idiomatical, it might have 
lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What 
he attempted, he performed : he is never feeble, 
and he did not wish to be energetic ;* he is never 
rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences 
have neither studied amplitude nor affected bre- 
vity : his periods, though not diligently round- 
ed, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to at- 
tain an English style, familiar but not coarse, 
ind elegant but not ostentatious, must give his 
days and nights to the volumes of Addison. 



HUGHES. 



John Hughes, the son of a citizen in London, 
and of Anne Burgess, of an ancient family in 
Wiltshire, was born at Marlborough, July 29, 
1677. He was educated at a private school ; 
and though his advances in literature are, in the 
" Biographia," very ostentatiously displayed, 
the name of his master is somewhat ungratefully 
concealed. * 

At nineteen he drew the plan of a tragedy ; 
and paraphrased, rather too profusely, the ode 
of Horace which begins Integer Vitce. To poetry 
he added the science of music, in which he seems 
to have attained considerable skill, together 
with the practice of design, or rudiments of 
painting. 

His studies did not withdraw him wholly 
from business, nor did business hinder him from 
study. He had a place in the office of ordnance ; 
and was secretary to several commissions for 
purchasing lands necessary to secure the royal 
docks at Chatham and Portsmouth ; yet found 
time to acquaint himself with modern lan- 
guages. 



* He was educated in a dissenting academy, of 
which the Rev. Thomas Rowe was tutor ; and 
was a fellow-student there with Dr. Icaac Watts, 
Mr. Samuel Say, and other persons of eminence. 
In the " Horas Lyricae" of Dr. Watts, is a poem to 
the memory of Mr. Rowe. — H. 



In 1697 he published a poem on the " Peace 
nf Kyswick :" and in 1699 another piece, called 
" The Court of Neptune," on the return of 
King William, which he addressed to Mr. 
Montague, the general patron of the followers 
of the Muses. The same year he produced a 
song on the Duke of Gloucester's birth-day. 

He did not confine himself to poetry, but cul- 
tivated other kinds of writing with great suc- 
cess ; and about this time showed his knowledge 
of human nature by an " Essay on the Plea- 
sure of being Deceived." In 1702 he published, 
on the death of King William, a Pindaric ode, 
called " The House of Nassau;" and wrote an- 
other paraphrase on the Otium Divos of Horace. 

In 1703 his Ode on Music was performed at 
Stationers' Hall ; and he wrote afterwards six 
cantatas, which were set to music by the great- 
est master of that time, and seemed intended to 
oppose or exclude the Italian opera, an exotic 
and irrational entertainment, which has been 
always combated, and always has prevailed. 

His reputation was now so far advanced, 
that the public began to pay reverence to his 
name; and he was solicited to prefix a pre- 
face to the translation of Boccalini, a writer 



• But, says Dr. Warton, he sometimes is so 
in another MS. note he adds, often so.— C. 



a»& 



176 



HUGHES. 



whose satirical vein cost him his life in Italy, 
and who never, I believe, found many readers 
in. this country, even though introduced by such 
powerful recommendation. 

He translated Fontenelle's " Dialogues of the 
Dead ;" and his version was perhaps read at 
that time, but is now neglected ; for by a book not 
necessary, and owing its reputation wholly 
to its turn of diction, little notice can be gained 
but from those who can enjoy the graces of the 
original. To the " Dialogues" of Fontenelle 
he added two composed by himself; and, though 
not only an honest but a pious man, dedicated 
his work to the Earl of Wharton. He judged 
skilfully enough of his own interest ; for Whar- 
ton, when he went lord-lieutenant to Ireland, 
offered to take Hughes with him and establish 
him ; but Hughes, having hopes, or promises, 
from another man in power, of some provision 
more suitable to his inclination, declined Whar- 
ton's offer, and obtained nothing from the other. 

He translated the " Miser" of Moliere, which 
he never offered to the stage ; and occasionally 
amused himself with making versions of favour- 
ite scenes in other plays. 

Being now received as a wit among the wits, 
he paid his contributions to literary undertak- 
ings, and assisted both the " Taller," " Spec- 
tator," and " Guardian." In 1712 he trans- 
lated Vertot's " History of the Revolution of 
Portugal," produced an " Ode to the Creator 
of the World, from the Fragments of Orpheus," 
and brought upon the stage an opera called 
" Calypso and Telemachus," intended to show 
that the English language might be very happily 
adapted to music. This was impudently op- 
posed by those who were employed in the Italian 
ooera ; and, what cannot be told without indig- 
nation, the intruders had such interest with the 
Ouke of Shrewsbury, then lord-chamberlain, 
wfto had married an Italian, as to obtain an ob- 
struction of the profits, though not an inhibition 
of the performance. 

There was at this time a project formed by 
Tonson for a translation of the " Pharsalia" by 
everal hands; and Hughes Englished the tenth 
ook. But this design, as must often happen 
when the concurrence of many is necessary, fell 
to the ground ; and the whole work was after- 
wards performed by Rowe. 

His acquaintance with the great writers of 
his time appears to have been very general ; but 
of his intimacy with Addison there is a remark- 
able proof. It is told, on good authority, that 
" Cato" was finished and played by his persua- 
sion. It had long wanted the last Act, which 
lie was desired by Addison to supply. If the 
request was sincere, it proceeded from an opinion, 
whatever it was, that did not last long ; for 
when Hughes came in a week to show him his 
iirst attempt, he found half an act written by 
Addison himself. 



He afterwards published the works of Spensep, 
with his life, a glossary, and a Discourse on 
Allegorical Poetry ; a work for which he was 
well qualified as a judge of the beauties of writ- 
ing, but perhaps wanted an antiquary's know 
ledge of the obsolete words. He did not much 
revive the curiosity of the public ; for near 
thirty years elapsed before his edition was re* 
printed. The same year produced his " Apollo 
and Daphne," of which the success was very 
earnestly promoted by Steele, who, when the 
rage of party did not misguide him, seems to 
have been a man of boundless benevolence. 

Hughes had hitherto suffered the mortifica- 
tions of a narrow fortune ; but in 1717 the Lord- 
chancellor Cowper set him at ease ; by making 
him secretary to the commissions of the peace ; 
in which he afterwards, by a particular request, 
desired his successor Lord Parker to continue 
him. He had now affluence ; but such is 
human life, that he had it when his declining 
health could neither allow him long possession 
nor quick enjoyment. 

His last work was his tragedy, " The Siege 
of Damascus," after which a Siege became a 
popular title. This play, which still continues 
on the stage, and of which it is unnecessary to 
add a private voice to such continuance of ap- 
probation, is not acted or printed according to 
the author's original draught or his settled in- 
tention. He had made Phocyas apostatize from 
his religion ; after which the abhorrence of 
Eudocia would have been reasonable, his misery 
would have been just, and the horrors of his re- 
pentance exemplary. The players, however, 
required that the guilt of Phocyas should ter- 
minate in desertion to the enemy; and Hughes, 
unwilling that his relations should lose the 
benefit of his work, complied with the altera- 
tion. 

He was now weak with a lingering consump- 
tion, and not able to attend the rehearsal, yet 
was so vigorous in his faculties that only ten 
days before his death he wrote the dedication to 
his patron, Lord Cowper. On February 17, 
1719-20, the play was represented, and the 
author died. He lived to hear that it was well 
received ; but paid no regard to the intelligence, 
being then wholly employed in the meditations 
of a departing Christian. 

A man of his character was undoubtedly re- 
gretted ; and Steele devoted an essay, in the 
paper, called " The Theatre," to the memory 
of his virtues. His life is written in the 
" Biographia" with some degree of favourable 
partiality ; and an account of him is prefixed W 
his works by his relation the late Mr. Dun- 
combe, a man whose blameless elegance deserved 
the same respect. 

The character of his genius I shall transcribe 
from the cori-espondi-nce of Swift and Pope. 

" A month ago," says Swift, " were sent ma 



SHEFFIELD. 



177 



over, by a friend of mine, the works of John 
Hughes, Esquire. They are in prose and verse. 
I never heard of the man in my life, yet 1 find 
your name as a subscriber. He is too grave a 
poet for me; and I think among the mediocrists 
in prose as well as verse." 
To this Pope returns : " To answer your 



question as to Mr. Hughes : what he wanted in 
genius, he made up as an honest man ; but he 
was of the class you think him."* 

In Spence's Collection, Pope is made to speak 
of him with still less respect, as having no claim 
to poetical reputation but from his tragedy. 



SHEFFIELD. 



DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 



John Sheffield, descended from a long series 
of illustrious ancestors, was born in 1649, the 
son of Edmund earl of Mulgrave, who died in 
1658. The young Lord was put into the hands 
of a tutor, with whom he was so little satisfied, 
that he got rid of him in a short time, and at an 
age not exceeding twelve years resolved to edu- 
cate himself. Such a purpose, formed at such 
an age, and successfully prosecuted, delights, as 
it is strange, and instructs, as it is real. 

His literary acquisitions are more wonderful, 
as those years in which they are commonly made 
were spent by him in the tumult of a military 
life, or the gayety of a court. When war was 
declared against the Dutch, he went, at seven- 
teen, on board the ship in which Prince Rupert 
and the Duke of Albemarle sailed, with the 
command of the fleet : but by contrariety of 
winds they were restrained from action. His 
zeal for the King's service was recompensed by 
the command of one of the independent troops of 
horse, then raised to protect the coast. > 

Next year he received a summons to parlia- 
ment, which, as he was then but eighteen years 
old, the Earl of Northumberland censured as at 
least indecent, and his objection was allowed. 
He had a quarrel with the Earl of Rochester, 
which he has perhaps too ostentatiously related, 
as Rochester's surviving sister, the Lady Sand- 
wich, is said to have told him with very sharp 
reproaches. 

When another Dutch war (1672) broke out, 
he went again a volunteer in the ship which the 
celebrated Lord Ossory commanded ; and there 
made, as he relates, two curious remarks : 

" I have observed two things, which I dare 
affirm, though not generally believed. One was, 
that the wind of a cannon bullet, though flying 
never so near, is incapable of doing tne least 
.harm ; and, indeed, were it otherwise, no man 
above deck would escape. The other was, that 
a great shot may be sometimes avoided, even as 
it flies, by changing one's ground a little ; for, 



when the wind sometimes blew away the smoke, 
it was so clear a sun- shiny day, that we could 
easily perceive the bullets (that were half spent) 
fall into the water, and from thence bound up 
again among us, which gives sufficient time for 
making a step or two on any side; though in so 
swift a motion, it is hard to judge well in what 
line the bullet comes, which, if mistaken, may 
by removing cost a man his life, instead of sav- 
ing it." 

His behaviour was so favourably represented 
by Lord Ossory, that he was advanced to the 
command of the Catherine, the best second- rate 
ship in the navy. 

He afterwards raised a regiment of foot, and 
commanded it as colonel. The land-forces were 
sent ashore by Prince Rupert ; and he lived in 
the camp very familiarly with Schomberg. He 
was then appointed colonel of the old Holland 
regiment, together with his own, and had the 
promise of a garter, which he obtained in his 
twenty-fifth year. He was likewise made gen- 
tleman of the bed-chamber. He afterwards 
went into the French service, to learn the art of 
war under Turenne, but stayed only a short 
time. Being by the Duke of Monmouth oppos- 
ed in his pretensions to the first troop of horse- 
guards, he, in return, made Monmouth suspect- 
ed by the Duke of York. He was not long 
after, when the unlucky Monmouth fell into 
disgrace, recompensed with the lieutenancy of 
Yorkshire and the government of Hull. 

Thus rapidly did he make his way both to 
military and civil honours and employments ; yet, 
busy as he was, he did not neglect his studies, 



* This, Dr. Warton asserts, is very unjust census i 
and, in a note in his late edition of Pope's Works, 
asks if " the Author of such a tragedy as ' The Siege 
of Damascus' was one of the mediocribus ? Swift 
and Pope seem not to recollect the value and 
rank of an author who could write such a trag- 
edy." — C. 



178 



SHEFFIELD. 



but at least cultivated poetry ; in which he 
must have been early considered as uncommonly 
skilful, if it be true which is reported, that when 
he was yet not twenty years old, his recommen- 
dation advanced Dryden to the laurel. 

The Moors having besieged Tangier, he was 
sent (1680) with two thousand men to its relief. 
A strange story is told of the danger to which 
he was intentionally exposed in a leaky ship, to 
gratify some resentful jealousy of the King, 
whose health he therefore would never permit 
at his table till he saw himself in a safer place. 
His voyage was prosperously performed in three 
weeks ; and the Moors without a contest retired 
before him. 

In this voyage he composed " The Vision ;" a 
licentious poem ; such as was fashionable in 
those times, with little power of invention or 
propriety of sentiment. 

At his return he found the King kind, whu 
perhaps had never been angry ; and he continued 
a wit and a courtier as before. 

At the succession of King James, to whom he 
was intimately known, and by whom he thought 
himself beloved, he naturally expected still 
brighter sunshine ; but all know how soon that 
reign began to gather clouds. His expectations 
were not disappointed ; he was immediately ad- 
mitted into the privy- council, and made lord- 
chamberlain. He accepted a place in the high 
commission, without knowledge, as he declared 
after the Revolution, of its illegality. Having 
few religious scruples, he attended the King to 
mass, and kneeled with the rest, but had no dis- 
position to receive the Romish faith, or to force 
it upon others ; for when the priests, encouraged 
by his appearances of compliance, attempted to 
convert him, he told them, as Burnet has re- 
corded, that he was willing to receive instruc- 
tion, and that he had taken much pains to be- 
lieve in God who had made the world and all 
men in it; but that he should not be easily 
persuaded that man was quits, and made God 
again. 

A pointed sentence is bestowed by successive 
transmission to the last whom it will fit : this 
censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its 
value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, 
one of the first sufferers for the protestant reli- 
gion, who, in the time of Henry VIII. was tor- 
tured in the Tower ; concerning which there is 
reason to wonder that it was not known to the 
historian of the Reformation. 

In the Revolution he acquiesced, though he 
did not promote it. There was once a design of 
associating him in the invitation of the Prince 
of Orange ; but the Earl of Shrewsbury dis- 
couraged the attempt, by declaring that Mul- 
grave would never concur. This King William 
afterwards told him ; and asked him what he 
would have done if the proposal had been made : 
*' Sir," said he, " I would have discovered it 



to the King whom I then served." To which 
King William replied, " I cannot blame you." 

Finding King James irremediably excluded, 
he voted for the conjunctive sovereignty, upon 
this principle, that he thought the title of the 
Prince and his Consort equal, and it would 
please the Prince their protector, to have a share 
in the sovereignty. This vote gratified King 
William ; yet, either by the King's distrust, or 
his own discontent, he lived some years without 
employment. He looked on the King with 
malevolence, and if his verses or his prose may 
be credited, with contempt. He was, notwith- 
standing this aversion or indifference, made 
marquis of Normanby (1694), but still opposed 
the court on some important questions ; yet at 
last he was received into the cabinet council, 
with a pension of three thousand pounds. 

At the accession of Queen Anne, whom he is 
said to have courted when they were both young, 
he was highly favoured. Before her coronation 
(1702) she made him Lord privy-seal, and soon 
after lord-lieutenant of the North riding of 
Yorkshire. He was then named commissioner 
for treating with the Scots about the Union ; 
and was made next year, first, Duke of Nor- 
manby, and then of Buckinghamshire, there be- 
ing suspected to be somewhere, a latent claim to 
the title of Buckingham. 

Soon after, becoming jealous of the Duke of 
Marlborough, he resigned the privy-seal, and 
joined the discontented tories in a motion, ex- 
tremely offensive to the Queen, for inviting the 
Princess Sophia to England. The Queen 
courted him back with an offer no less than that 
of the chancellorship ; which he refused. He 
now reth*ed from business, and built that house 
in the Park which is now the Queen's, upon 
ground granted by the crown. 

When the ministry was changed (1710), he 
was made lord-chamberlain of the household, 
and concurred in all transactions of that time, 
except that he endeavoured to protect the Cata- 
lans. After the Queen's death he became a 
constant opponent of the court ; and, having no 
public business, is supposed to have amused 
himself by writing his two tragedies. He died 
February 24, 1720-21. 

He was thrice married ; by his two first wives 
he had no children ; by his third, who was the 
daughter of King James by the Countess of 
Dorchester, and the widow of the Earl of Ang- 
lesy, he had, besides other children that died 
early, a son, born in 1716, who died in 1735, and 
put an end to the line of Sheffield. It is obser- 
vable, that the Duke's three wives were all 
widows. The dutchess died in 1742. 

His character is not to be proposed as worthy 
of imitation. His religion he may be supposed 
to have learned from Hobbes ; and his morality 
was such as naturally proceeds from loose opin- 
ions. His sentiments with respect to women he 



PRIOR. 



179 



picked up in the court of Charles ; and his prin- 
ciples concerning property were such as a gam- 
ing-table supplies. He was censured as covet- 
ous, and has been defended by an instance of in- 
attention to his affairs, as if a man might not at 
once be corrupted by avai'ice and idleness. He 
is said, however, to have had much tenderness, 
and to have been very ready to apologize for his 
violences of passion. 

He is introduced into this collection only as a 
poet; and if we credit the testimony of his 
contemporaries, he was a poet of no vulgar rank. 
But favour and flattery are now at an end; cri- 
ticism is no longer softened by his bounties, or 
awed by his splendour, and, being able to take a 
more steady view, discovers him to be a writer 
that sometimes glimmers, but l'arely shines, 
feebly laborious, and at best but pretty. His 
songs are upon common topics ; he hopes, and 
grieves, and repents, and despairs, and rejoices, 
like any other maker of little stanzas : to be great, 
he hardly tries ; to be gay, is hardly in his power. 

In his " Essay on Satire," he was always sup- 
posed to have had the help of Dryden. His 
" Essay on Poetry" is the great work for which 
he was praised by Roscommon, Dryden, and 
Pope ; and doubtless by many more whose eu- 
logies have perished. 

Upon this piece he appears to have set a high 
value ; for he was all his life-time improving it 
by successive revisals, so that there is scarcely 
any poem to be found of which the last edition 
differs more from the first. Amongst other 
changes, mention is made of some compositions 
of Dryden, which were written after the first 
appearance of the Essay. 

At the time when this work first appeared, 
Milton's fame was not yet fully established, and 
therefore Tasso and Spenser were set before 
him. The two last lines were these. The epic 
poet, says he, 



Must above Milton's lofty flights prevail, 
Succeed where great Torquato, and where greater 
Spenser fail. 

The last line in succeeding editions was short- 
ened, and the order of names continued; but 
now Milton is at last advanced to the highest 
place, and the passage thus adjusted : 

Must above Tasso's lofty flights prevail, 
Succeed where Spenser, and e?'n Milton fail. 

Amendments are seldom made without some 
token of a rent : lofty does not suit Tasso so 
well as Milton. 

One celebrated line seems to be borrowed. 
The Essay calls a perfect character 

A faultless monster which the world ne'er saw. 

Scaliger, in his poems, terms Virgil sine laoe 
monstrum. Sheffield can scarcely be supposed 
to have read Scaliger's poetry ; perhaps he found 
the words in a quotation. 

Of this Essay, which Dryden has exalted so 
highly, it may be justly said that the precepts 
are judicious, sometimes ne^v, and often happily 
expressed ; but there are, after all the emenda- 
tions, many weak lines, and some strange ap- 
pearances of negligence ; as, when he gives the 
laws of elegy, he insists upon connexion and 
coherence ; without which, says he, 

'Tis epigram, 'tis point, 'tis what you will : 
But not an elegy, nor writ with skill, 
No Panegyric, nor a Cooper's Hill. 

Who would not suppose that Waller's " Pane- 
gyric" and Denham's " Cooper's Hill" were 
elegies ? 

His verses are often insipid, but his memoirs 
are lively and agreeable; he had the perspicuity 
and elegance of an historian, but not the fire 
and fancy of a poet. 



PRIOR. 



Matthew Prior is one of those that has burst 
out from an obscure original to great eminence. 
He was born July 21, 1664, according to some, 
at Winburn, in Dorsetshire, of I know not 
what parents ; others say, that he was the son 
of a joiner of London; he was perhaps willing 
enough to leave his birth unsettled,* in hope, 

* The difliculty of settling Prior's birth-place is 
great. In the Register of hi3 College he is called, 



like Don Quixote, that the historian of his ac- 
tions might find him seme illustrious alliance. 



at his admission by the President, Matthew Prior, 
of Winburn, in Middlesex; by himself, next day, 
Matthew Prior, of Dorsetshire, in which county, not 
in Middlesex, Winborn, or Winborne, as it stands 
in the Villare, is found. When he stood candidate 
for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was 
registered again by himself as of Middlesex. The 



180 



PRIOR. 



He is supposed to have fallen, by his father's 
death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner,* 
near Charing Cross, who sent him for some 
time to Dr. Busby, at Westminster; but, not 
intending to give him any education beyond 
that of the school, took him, when he was well 
advanced in literature, to his own house, where 
the Earl of Dorset, celebrated for patronage of 
genius, found him by chance, as Burnet relates, 
reading Horace, and was so well pleased with 
his proficiency, that he undertook the care and 
cost of his academical education. 

He entered his name in St. John's College, at 
Cambridge, in 1 6S2, in his eighteenth year ; and 
it may be reasonably supposed that he was dis- 
tinguished among his contemporaries. He be- 
came a bachelor, as is usual, in four years ;f 
and two years afterwards wrote the poem on the 
" Deity," which stands first in his volume. 

It is the established practice of that College, 
to send every year to the Earl of Exeter some 
poems upon sacred subjects, in acknowledgment 
of a benefaction enjoyed by them from the boun- 
ty of his ancestor. On this occasion were those 
verses written, which, though nothing is said of 
their success, seem to have recommended him to 
some notice ; for his praise of the Countess's 
music, and his lines on the famous picture of 
Seneca, afford reason for imagining that he was 
more or less conversant with that family. 

The same year he published the " City Mouse 
and Country Mouse," to ridicule Dryden's 
" Hind and Panther," in conjunction with Mr. 
Montague. There is a story! of great pain suf- 
fered, and of tears shed, on this occasion, by 
Dryden, who thought it hard that " an old 
man should be so treated by those to whom he 
had always been civil." By tales like these is 
the envy raised by superior abilities every day 
gratified : when they are attacked, every one 
hopes to see them humbled : what is hoped is 
readily believed, and what is believed is confi- 
dently told. Dryden had been more accustomed 
to hostilities than that such enemies should 
break his quiet ; and if Ave can suppose him 
vexed, it would be hard to deny him sense 
enough to conceal his uneasiness. 

The " City Mouse and Country Mouse" pro- 
cured its authors more solid advantages than the 



last record ought to be preferred, because it was 
made upon oath. It is observable, that, as a native 
of Winborne, he is styled Fillus Georgii Prior, gen- 
erosij not consistently with the common account of 
the meanness of his birth. — Dr. J. 

* Samuel Prior kept the Rummer Tavern, near 
Charing Cross, in 1685. The annual feast of the no- 
bility and gentry living in the parish of St. Martin 
in the Fields was held at his house, October 14, that 
year. — N. 

i He was admitted to his bachelor's degree in 

1686 ; and to his master's, by mandate, in 1700. — N. 

j Spence. 



pleasure of fretting Dryden ; for they were both 
speedily preferred. Montague, indeed, obtained 
the first notice, with some degree of discontent, 
as it seems, in Prior, who probably knew that 
his own part of the performance was the best. 
He had not, however, much reason to complain j 
for he came to London, and obtained suet* 
notice, that (in 1691) he was sent to the Congress 
at the Hague as secretary to the embassy. In 
this assembly of princes and nobles, to which 
Europe has perhaps scarcely seen any thing 
equal, was formed the grand alliance against 
Louis, which at last did not produce effects 
proportionate to the magnificence of the trans- 
action. 

The conduct of Prior in this splendid initi- 
ation into public business was so pleasing to 
King William, that he made him one of the 
gentlemen of his bed-chamber ; and he is sup- 
posed to have passed some of the next years in 
the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry. 

The death of Queen Mary (in 1695) produced 
a subject for all the writers ; perhaps no funeral 
was ever so poetically attended. Dryden, in- 
deed, as a man discountenanced and deprived, 
was silent ; but scarcely any other maker of 
verses omitted to bring his tribute of tuneful 
sorrow. An emulation of elegy was universal. 
Maria's praise was not confined to the English 
language, but fills a great part of the " Musse 
Anglicans." 

Prior, who was both a poet and a courtier, 
was too diligent to miss this opportunity of re- 
spect. He wrote a long ode, which was pre- 
sented to the King, by whom it was not likely 
to be ever read. 

In two years he was secretary to another em- 
bassy, at the treaty of Ryswick (in 1697*) ; and 
next year had the same office at the court of 
France, where he is said to have been considered 
with great distinction. 

As he was one day surveying the apartments 
at Versailles, being shown the victories of LoTiis, 
I painted by Le Brun, and asked whether the 
King of England's palace had any such decora- 
tions : " The monuments of my master's ac- 
tions," said he, " are to be seen every where 
but in his own house." 

The pictures of Le Brun are not only in 
themselves sufficiently ostentatious, but were 
explained by inscriptions so arrogant, that Boi- 
leau and Racine thought it necessary to make 
them more simple. 

He was in the following year at Loo with the 
King; from whom, after a long audience, he 
carried orders to England, and upon his arrival 
became under-secretary of state in the Earl of 
Jersey's office ; a pest which he did not retain 



* He received, in September, 1697, a present of '2G0 
guineas from the lords justices, for his trouble «o 
bringing over the treaty of peace.— N. 



P ft I O R. 



181 



long, because Jersey was removed ; but he was 
soon made commissioner of trade. 

This year (1700) produced one of his longest 
and most splendid compositions, the " Carmen 
Seculare," in which he exhausts all his powers 
of celebration. I mean not to accuse him of flat- 
tery : he probably thought all that he wrote, and 
retained as much veracity as can be properly ex- 
acted from a poet professedly encomiastic. King 
William supplied copious materials for either 
verse or prose. His whole life had been action, 
and none ever denied him the resplendent qua- 
lities of steady resolution and personal courage. 
He was really in Prior's mind what he repre- 
sents him in his verses ; he considered him as a 
hero, and was accustomed to say that he praised 
others in compliance with the fashion, but that 
in celebrating King William he followed his in- 
clination. To Prior gratitude would dictate 
praise which reason would not refuse. 

Among the advantages to arise from the fu- 
ture years of William's reign, he mentions a 
Society for useful Arts, and among them 

Some that with care true eloquence shall teach, 
And to just idioms fix our doubtful speech ; 
That from our writers distant realms may know 
The thanks we to our monarchs owe, 
And schools profess our tongue through eveiy land 
That has invoked his aid or bless'd his hand. 

Tickell, in his " Prospect of Peace," has the 
same hope of a new academy : 

In happy chains our daring language bound, 
Shall sport no more in arbitrary sound. 

Whether the similitude of those passages, which 
exhibit the same thought on the same occasion 
proceeded from accident or imitation, is not easy 
to determine. Tickell might have been impressed 
with his expectation by Swift's " Proposal for 
ascertaining the English Language," then lately 
published. 

In the parliament that met in 1701 he was 
chosen representative of East Grinstead. Per- 
haps it was about this time that he changed his 
party ; for he voted for the impeachment of 
those lords who had persuaded the King to the 
Partition-treaty, a treaty in which he had him- 
self been ministerially employed. 

A great part of Queen Anne's reign was a 
time of war, in which there was little employ- 
ment for negotiators, and Prior had therefore 
leisure to make or to polish verses. When the 
battle of Blenheim called forth all the versemen, 
Prior, among the rest, took care to show his de- 
light in the increasing honour of his country by 
an Epistle to Boileau. 

He published soon afterwards a volume of 
poems, with the encomiastic character of his de- 
ceased patron, the Duke of Dorset ; it began 
with the College Exercise, and ended with the 
" Nut-brown Maid." 



The battle of Ramillies soon afterwards (in 
1706) excited him to another effort of poetry. 
On this occasion he had fewer or less formida- 
ble rivals ; and it would be not easy to name 
any other composition produced by that evenl 
which is now remembered. 

Every thing has its day. Through the reigns 
of William and Anne no prosperous event pass- 
ed undignified by poetry. In the last war, 
when France was disgraced and overpowered in 
every quarter of the globe ; when Spain, coming 
to her assistance, only shared her calamities, and 
the name of an Englishman was reverenced 
through Europe, no poet was heard amidst the 
general acclamation ; the fame of our counsel- 
lors and heroes was intrusted to the Gazetteer. 

The nation in time grew weary of the war, 
and the Queen grew weary of her ministers. 
| The war was burdensome, and the ministers 
were insolent. Harley and his friends began to 
hope that they might, by driving the whigs from 
i court and from power, gratify at once the Queen 
and the people. There was now a call for 
; writers, who might convey intelligence of past 
' abuses, and show the waste of public money, 
, the unreasonable conduct of the allies, the avar- 
ice of generals, the tyranny of minions, and the 
general danger of approaching ruin. 

For this purpose a paper called " The Exam- 
iner" was periodically published, written, as it 
happened, by any wit of the party, and some- 
times, as is said, by Mrs. Manley. Some are 
owned by Swift ; and one, in ridicule of Garth's 
verses to Godolphin upon the loss of his place, 
was written by Prior, and answered by Addi- 
son, who appears to have known the Author 
either by conjecture or intelligence. 

The tories, who were now in power, were in 
haste to end the war; and Prior, being recalled 
(1710) to his former employment of making trea- 
ties, was sent (July, 1711) privately to Paris 
with propositions of peace. He was remember- 
ed at the French court ; and, returning in about 
a month, brought with him the Abbe Gualtier, 
and Mr. Mesnager, a minister from France, in- 
vested with full powers. 

This transaction not being avowed, Mackay, 
the master of the Dover packet-boat, either 
zealously or officiously, seized Prior and his as- 
sociates at Canterbury. It is easily supposed 
that they were soon released. 

The negotiation was begun at Prior's house, 
where the Queen's ministers met Mesnager 
(September 20, 1711), and entered privately up- 
on the great business. The importance of Prior 
appears from the mention made of him by St. 
John in his letter to the Queen. 

" My Lord Treasurer moved, and all my 
Lords were of the same opinion, that Mr. Prior 
should be added to those who are empowered to 
sign : the reason for which is, because he, having 
personally treated with Monsieur de Torcy, is 
A a 



182 



PRIOR. 



the best witness we can produce of the sense in 
which the general preliminary engagements are 
entered into ; besides which, as h^i is the best 
versed in matters of trade of all your Majesty's 
servants, who have been trusted in this secret, if 
you should think fit to employ him in the future 
treaty of commerce, it will be of consequence 
that he has been a party concerned in conclud- j 
ing that convention winch must be the rule of 
this treaty." 

The assembly of this important night was in 
some degree clandestine, the design of treating 
not being yet openly declared, and, when the j 
wbigs returned to power, was aggravated to a | 
charge of high treason; though, as Prior re- j 
marks in his imperfect answer to the report of | 
the Committee of Secrecy, no treaty ever was 
made without private interviews and prelimi- 
nary discussions. 

My business is not the history of the peace, 
but the life of Prior. The conferences began at 
Utrecht on the first of January (1711-12), and 
the English plenipotentiaries arrived on the 
fifteenth. The ministers of the different poten- 
tates conferred and conferred ; but the peace ad- 
vanced so slowly, that speedier methods were 
found necessary, and Bolingbroke was sent to 
Paris to adjust differences with less formality : 
Prior either accompanied him or followed him, 
and, after his departure, had the appointments 
and authority of an ambassador, though no pub- 
lic character. 

By some mistake of the Queen's orders, the 
court of France had been disgusted ; and Bol- 
ingbroke says in his letter, " Dear Mat, hide 
the nakedness of thy country, and give the best 
turn thy fertile brain will furnish thee with to 
the blunders of thy countrymen, who are not 
much better politicians than the French are 
poets." 

Soon after, the Duke of Shrewsbury went on 
a formal embassy to Paris. It is related by 
Boyer, that the intention was to have joined 
Prior in the commission, but that Shrewsbury 
refused to be associated with a man so meanly 
born. Prior therefore continued to act without 
a title till the Duke returned next year to 
England, and then he assumed the style and 
dignity of ambassador. 

But, while he continued in appearance a 
private man, he was treated with confidence by 
Lewis, who sent him with a letter to the Queen, 
written in favour of the Elector of Bavaria. 
' l I shall expect," says he, " with impatience, 
the return of Mr. Prior, whose conduct is very 
agreeable to me." And while the Duke of 
Shrewsbury was still at Paris, Bolingbroke 
wrote to Prior thus : " Monsieur de Torcy has 
a confidence in you : make use of it, once for 
all, upon this occasion, and convince him thor- 
oughly, that we must give a different turn to 



our parliament and our people according to their 
resolution at this crisis." 

Prior's public dignity and splendour com- 
menced in August, 1713, and continued till the 
August following ; but I am afraid that, accor- 
ding to the usual fate of greatness, it was at- 
tended with some perplexities and mortifications. 
He had not all that is customarily given to am- 
bassadors : he hints to the Queen in an imper- 
fect poem, that he had no service of plate ; and 
it appeared by the debts which he contracted, 
that his remittances were not punctually made. 

On the first of August, 1714, ensued the 
downfal of the tories and the degradation of 
Prior. He was recalled, but was not able to 
return, being detained by the debts which he 
had found it necessary to contract, and which 
were not discharged before March, though his 
old friend Montague was now at the head of the 
Treasury. 

He returned then as soon as he could, and 
was welcomed on the 25th of March* by a war- 
rant, but was, however, suffered to live in his 
own house, under the custody of the messenger, 
till he was examined before a committee of the 
privy council, of which Mr. Walpole was 
chairman, and Lord Coningsby, Mr. Stanhope, 
and Mr. Lechmere, were the principal interro- 
gators ; who, in this examination, of which 
there is printed an account not unentertaining, 
behaved with the boisterousness of men elated 
by recent authority. They are represented as 
asking questions sometimes vague, sometimes 
insidious, and writing answers different from 
those which they received. Prior, however, 
seems to have been overpowered by their turbu- 
lence ; for he confesses that he signed what, if 
he had ever come before a legal judicature, he 
should have contradicted or explained away. 
The oath was administered by Boscawen, a 
Middlesex justice who at last was going to write 
his attestation on the wrong side of the paper. 

They were very industrious to find some 
charge against Oxford ; and asked Prior, with 
great earnestness, who was present when the 
preliminary articles were talked of or signed at 
his house ? He told them, that either the Earl 
of Oxford or the Duke of Shrewsbury was 
absent, but he could not remember which ; an 
answer which perplexed them, because it sup- 
plied no accusation against either. " Could any 
thing be more absurd," says he, " or more in- 
human, than to propose to me a question, by 
the answering of which I might, according to 
them, prove myself a traitor ? And notwith- 
standing their solemn promise, that nothing 
which I could say should hurt myself, 1 had no 
reason to trust them ; for they violated that 
promise about five hours after. However, I 



1715 



PRIOR. 



183 



owned I was there present. Whether this was 
wisely done or not, I leave to my friends to de- 
termine." 

When he had signed the paper, he was told 
by Walpole, that the committee were not satis- 
fied with his behaviour, nor could give such an 
account of it to the Commons as might merit 
favour ; and that they now thought a stricter con- 
finement necessary than to his own house. 
" Here," says he, " Boscawen played the moral- 
ist, and Coningsby the Christian, but both very 
awkwardly." The messenger, in whose custody 
he was to be placed, was then called, and very 
decently asked by Coningsby, " if his house 
was secured by bars and bolts ?" The messen- 
ger answered, " No !" with astonishment. At 
which Coningsby very angrily said, " Sir, you 
must secure this prisoner ; it is for the safety of 
the nation : if he escape you shall answer for 
it." 

They had already printed their report ; and 
in this examination were endeavouring to find 
proofs. 

He continued thus confined for some time j 
and Mr. Walpole (June 10, 1715) moved for an 
impeachment against him. What made him so 
acrimonious does not appear : he was by nature 
no thirster for blood. Prior was a week after 
committed to close custody, with orders that 
" no person should be admitted to see him with- 
out leave from the speaker." 

When two years after, an Act of Grace was 
passed, he was excepted, and continued still in 
custody, which he had made less tedious by 
writing his " Alma." He was, however, soon 
after discharged. 

He had now his liberty, but he had nothing 
else. Whatever the profit of his employments 
might have been, he had always spent it ; and 
at the age of fifty-three was, with all his abili- 
ties, in danger of penury, having yet no solid re- 
venue but from the fellowship of his college, 
which, when in his exaltation he was censured 
for retaining it, he said, he could live upon 
at last. 

Being however generally known and esteem- 
ed, he was encouraged to add other poems to 
those which he had printed, and to publish 
them by subscription. The expedient succeeded 
by the industry of many friends, who circulated 
the proposals,* and the care of some, who, it is 
said, Withheld the money from him lest he should 
squander it. The price of the volume was two 
guineas ; the whole collection was four thou- 
sand; to which Lord Harley, the son of the 
Earl of Oxford, to whom he had invariably 
dhered, added an equal sum for the purchase of 
Down-hall, which Prior was to enjoy during 
life, and Harley after his decease. 

* Swift obtained ir:any subscriptions for him in 
Irelaud.-H. 



He had now, what wits and philosophers 
have often wished, the power of passing the dav 
in contemplative tranquillity. But it seems 
that busy men 6eldom live long in a state of 
quiet. It is not unlikely that his health de- 
clined. He complains of deafness ; " for," says 
he, " I took little care of my eaiS while I was 
not sure if my head was my own." 

Of any occurrences in his remaining life, I 
have found no account. In a letter to Swift, 
" I have," says he, " treated Lady Harriot at 
Cambridge (a fellow of a college treat ! ) and spoke 
verses to her in a gown and cap ! What, the 
plenipotentiary, so far concerned in the damned 
peace at Utrecht — the man that makes up half 
the volume of terse prose, that makes up the 
report of the committee, speaking verses ! Sic est, 
homo sum." 

He died at Wimpole, a seat of the Earl of 
Oxford, on the eighteenth of September, 1721, 
and was buried in Westminster ; where, on a 
monument for which, as the " last piece of hu- 
man vanity," he left five hundred pounds, is 
engraven this epitaph : 

Sui Temporis Historiam meditanti, 

Paulatim obrepens Febris 

peri sirnul & Vitas filum abrupir, 

Sept. 18. An. Dom. 1721. Mtat. 57. 

H. S. E. 

Vir Eximius, 

Serenissimis 

Regi Gclielmo Reginaeque Marijb 

In Congressione Fcederatorum 

Hagae, anno 1690, celebrata 

Deiude Magnra Britannia? Legatis, 

Turn iis 

Qui anno 1697 Pacem Ryswicki confecerunt, 

Turn iis 

Qui apud Gallos annis proximis Legation em 

Obierunt ; eodem etiam anno 1697 in Hiberni 

Secretarius; 

Necnon in utroque Houorabili consessu 

Eorum 

Qui anno 1700 ordinandis Comniercii negotiis 

Quique anno 1711 dirigendis Portorii rebus, 

Prsesidebant, 

COMMJSSIONARIUS; 

Postremo 

Ab Anna 

Felicissinias memoriae Regina 

4.d Ludovicum XIV. Gallias Regem 

Missus anno 1711 

De Pace stabilienda, 

(Pace etiamnum durante 

Diuque ut boni jam omnes sperant dmatura) 

Cum summa potestate Legates ; 

MATTILEUS PRIOR, Armiger: 

Qui 

Hos omnes, quibus cumulatus est, Titulos 

Humanitatis, Ingenii, Eruditionis laude 

Superavit ; 

Cui enim nascenti faciles arriserant Musse. 

Hunc Puerum Schola hie Regia perpolmt; 

Juvenem in Collegio S'ti Johannis 

Cantabrigia optimis Scientiis instruxit ;. 

Virum denique auxit; & perfecit 



184 



PRIOR. 



Multa cum viris Principibus consuetudo ; 

Ita natus, ita instimtus, 

A Vatum Choro avelli nunquam potuit, 

Sed solebat ssepe rerum Cirllium gravitatem 

Amosniorum Literarum S;adiis condire : 

Et cum oinne adeo Polices genua 

Haud infeliciter teiitaret, 

Turn in Fabellis concinse le,jid6que tesendi3 

Mirus Artifex 

Nemiuem habuit parem. 

Hsec liberalis animi oblectamenta, 

Quam nullo Illi labore oonstitermt, 

Facile ii perspexere quibus usus est Amici; 

Apud quos Urbanitatum & Leporum plenus 

Cum ad rem, quaecunque forte inciderat, 

Apte, vari£, copiostque alluderet, 

Interea nihil qusesitum, nihil vi expressum 

Videbatur, 

Sed omnia ultro effluere, 

Et quasi j ugi 6 fonte affatim exuberare, 

Ita suos tandem dubios reliquit, 

Essetne in Scriptis Poeta Elegantior 

An in Convictu Comes Jucundior. 

Of Prior, eminent as he was, both by his 
abilities and station, very few memorials have 
been left by his contemporaries; the account 
therefore must now be destitute of his private 
character and familiar practices. He lived at 
a time when the rage of party detected all 
which it was any man's interest to hide ; and, 
as little ill is heard of Prior, it is certain that 
not much was known. He was not afraid of 
provoking censure, for when he forsook the 
whigs,* under whose patronage he first entered 
the world, he became a tory so ardent and de- 
terminate, that he did not willingly consort 
with men of different opinions. He was one 
of the sixteen tories who met weekly, and agreed 
to address each other by the title of brother ; and 
seems to have adhered, not only by concurrence 
of political designs, but by peculiar affection, to 
the Earl of Oxford and his family. With how 
much confidence he was trusted has been already 
told. 

He was, however, in Pope's* opinion, fit 
only to make verses, and less qualified for 
business than Addison himself. This was 
surely said without consideration. Addison, 
exalted to a high place, was forced into degrada- 
tion by the sense of his own incapacity ; Prior, 
who was employed by men very capable of esti- 
mating his value, having been secretary to one 
embassy, had, when great abilities were again 
wanted, the same office another time ; and was, 
after so much experience of his knowledge and 
dexterity, at last sent to transact a negotiation 
in the highest degree arduous and important, for 
which he was qualified, among other requisites, 
in the opinion of Bolingbroke, by his influence 
upon the French minister, and by skill in ques- 
tions of commerce above other men. 



* Spence. 



Of his behaviour in the lighter parts of life, 
it is too late to get much intelligence. One of 
his answers to a boastful Frenchman has been 
related ; and to an impertinent he made another 
equally proper. During his embassy, he sat at 
the opera by a man, who, in his rapture, accom- 
panied with his own voice the principal singer. 
Prior fell to railing at the performer with all 
the terms of reproach that he could collect, till 
the Frenchman, ceasing from his song, began to 
expostulate with him for his harsh censure of a 
man who was confessedly the ornament of the 
stage. " 1 know all that," says the ambassador, 
" mais il chante si haut, que je ne sgaurois vous 
entendre." 

In a gay French company,, where every one 
sang a little song or stanza, of which the burden 
was, " Bannissons la Melancholie :" when it 
came to his turn to sing, after the performance 
of a young lady that sat next him, he produced 
these extemporary lines : 

Mais cette voix, et ces beaux yeux, 
Font Cupidon trop dangereux ; 
Et je suis triste quand je crie, 
Bannissons la Melancholie. 

Tradition represents him as willing to descend 
from the dignity of the poet and statesman to 
the low delights of mean company. His Chloe 
probably was sometimes ideal ; but the woman 
with whom he cohabited was a despicable drab* 
of the lowest species. One of his wenches, per- 
haps Chloe, while he was absent from his house, 
stole his plate, and ran away ; as was related by 
a woman who bad been his servant. Of this 
propensity to sordid converse I have seen an ac- 
count so seriously ridiculous, that it seems to 
deserve insertion, f 

" I have been assured that Prior, after hav- 
ing spent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, 
Pope, and Swift, would go and smoke a pipe, 
and drink a bottle of ale, with a common soldier 
and his wife, in Long Acre, before he went to 
bed ; not from any remains of the lowness of his 
original, as one said, but, I suppose, that his 
faculties, 

Strain'd to the height, 

In that celestial colloquy sublime, 

Dazzled and spent, sunk down, and sought repair." 

Poor Prior, why was he so strained, and in 
such want of repair, after a conversation with 
men, not, in the opinion of the world, much 
wiser than himself? But such are the conceits 
of speculatists, who strain their faculties to find 
in a mine what lies upon the surface. 



• Spence ; and see Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. p. 1039. 
t Richardsoniana. 



PRIOR. 



185 



His opinions, so far as the means of judging 
are left us, seem to have heen right ; hut his life 
was, it seems, irregular, negligent, and sensual. 

Prior has written with great variety; and 
his variety has made him popular. He has tried 
all styles, from the grotesque to the solemn, and 
has not so failed in any as to incur derision or 
disgrace. 

His works may he distinctly considered, as 
comprising Tales, Love-verses, Occasional 
Poems, " Alma" and " Solomon." 

His Tales have ohtained general approbation, 
being written with great familiarity and great 
sprightliness ; the language is easy, but seldom 
gross, and the numbers smooth, without appear- 
ance of care. Of these Tales there are only 
four. " The Ladle;" which is introduced by a 
preface, neither necessary nor pleasing, neither 
grave nor merry. " Paulo Purganti ;" which 
has likewise a preface, but of more value than 
the Tale. " Hans Carvel," not over decent; 
and " Protogenes and Apelles," an old story, 
mingled, by an affectation not disagreeable, with 
modern images. " The Young Gentleman in 
Love" has hardly a just claim to the title of a 
Tale. I know not whether he be the original 
author of any Tale which he has given us. The 
adventure of " Hans Carvel" has passed through 
many successions of merry wits ; for it is to be 
found in Ariosto's " Satires," and is perhaps 
yet older. But the merit of such stories is the 
art of telling them. 

In his amorous effusions he is less happy ; for 
they are not dictated by nature or by passion, 
and have neither gallantry nor tenderness. 
They have the coldness of Cowley, without his 
wit, the dull exercises of a skilful versifier, re- 
solved at all adventures to write something 
about Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint 
of study. His fictions therefore are mythologi- 
cal. Venus, after the example of the Greek 
Epigram, asks when she was seen naked and 
bathing. Then Cupid is mistaken ; then Cupid 
is disarmed ; then he loses his darts to Gany- 
mede ; then Jupiter sends him a summons by 
Mercury. Then Chloe goes a hunting, with an 
ivory quiver graceful at her side ; Diana mistakes 
her for one of her nymphs, and Cupid laughs at 
the blunder. All this is surely despicable ; and 
even when he tries to act the lover, without the 
help of gods or goddesses, his thoughts ai'e un- 
affecting or remote. He talks not " like a man 
of this world." 

The greatest of all his amorous essays is 
" Henry and Emma;" a dull and tedious dia- 
logue, which excites neither esteem for the man, 
nor tenderness for the woman. The example 
of Emma, who resolves to follow an outlawed 
murderer wherever fear and guilt shall drive 
him, deserves no imitation ; and the experiment 



by which Henry tries the lady's constancy, is 
such as must end either in infamy to her, or in 
disappointment to himself. 

His Occasional Poems necessarily lost part of 
their value, as their occasions, being less re- 
membered, raised less emotion. Some of them, 
however, are preserved by their inherent excel- 
lence. The burlesque of Boileau's Ode on 
Namur has, in some parts, such airiness and 
levity as will always procure it readers, even 
among those who cannot compare it with the 
original. The epistle to Boileau is not so happy. 
The poems to the King are now perused only 
by young students, who read merely that they 
may learn to write ; and of the " Carmen Secu- 
lare," I cannot but suspect that I might praise 
or censure it by caprice, without danger of de- 
tection; for who can be supposed to have la- 
boured through it ? Yet the time has been when 
this neglected work was so popular, that it was 
translated into Latin by no common master. 

His poem on the battle of Ramillies is neces- 
sarily tedious by the form of the stanza: an 
uniform mass of ten lines thirty-five times re- 
peated, inconsequential and slightly connected, 
must weary both the ear and the understanding. 
His imitation of Spenser, which consists prin- 
cipally in I ween and I iveet, without exclusion 
of later modes of speech, makes his poem 
neither ancient nor modern. His mention of 
Mars and Bellona, and his comparison of Marl- 
borough to the eagle that bears the thunder of 
Jupiter, are all puerile and unaffecting ; and yet 
more despicable is the long tale told by Lewis 
in his despair, of Brute and Troynovante, and 
the teeth of Cadmus, with his similies of the 
raven and eagle, and wolf and lion. By the 
help of such easy fictions, and vulgar topics, 
without acquaintance with life, and without 
knowledge of art or nature, a poem of any 
length, cold and lifeless like this, may be easily 
written on any subject. 

In his Epilogues to Phcedra and to Lucius he 
is very happily facetious ; but in the prologue 
before the Queen, the pedant has found his way, 
with Minerva, Perseus, and Andromeda. 

His Epigrams and lighter pieces are, like 
those of others, sometimes elegant, sometimes 
trifling, and sometimes dull; amongst the best 
are the " Camelion," and the epitaph on John 
and Joan. 

Scarcely any one of our poets has written so 
much and translated so little : the version of 
Callimachus is sufficiently licentious ; ' the para- 
phrase on St. Paul's Exhortation to Charity is 
eminently beautiful. 

" Alma" is written in professed imitation of 
" Hudibras," and has at least one accidental re- 
semblance : " Hudibras" wants a plan, because 
it is left imperfect ; "Alma" is imperfect, be- 
cause it seems never to have had a plan. Prior 



166 



PRIOR. 



appears not to have proposed to himself any 
drift or design, hut to have written the casual 
dictates of the present moment. 

What Horace said, when he imitated Lucili- 
us, might he said of Butler hy Prior ; his num- 
bers were not smooth or neat. Prior excelled 
him in versification : but he was, like Horace, 
inventore minor: he had not Butler's exuberance 
of matter and variety of illustration. The 
spangles of wit which he could afford he knew 
how to polish ; but he wanted the bullion of his 
master. Butler pours out a negligent profusion, 
certain of the weight, but careless of the stamp. 
Prior has comparatively little, but with that 
little he makes a fine show. " Alma" has 
many admirers, and was the only piece among 
Prior's works, of which Pope said that he 
should wish to be the author. 

" Solomon" is the work to which he intrust- 
ed the protection of his name, and which he ex- 
pected succeeding ages to regard with veneration. 
His affection was natural ; it had undoubtedly 
been written with great labour; and who is 
willing to think that he has been labouring in 
vain ? He had infused into it much knowledge 
and much thought ; had often polished it to ele- 
gance, often dignified it with splendour, and 
sometimes heightened it to sublimity : he per- 
ceived in it many excellences, and did not dis- 
cover that it wanted that without which all 
others are of small avail, the power of engaging 
attention and alluring curiosity. 

Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults : 
negligences or errors are single and local, but 
tediousness pervades the whole; other faults are 
censured and forgotten, but the power of tedious- 
ness propagates itself. He that is weary the 
first hour, is more weary the second ; as bodies 
forced into motion contrary to their tendency 
pass more and more slowly through every suc- 
cessive interval of space. 

Unhappily this pernicious failure is that which 
an author is least able to discover. We are sel- 
dom tiresome to ourselves ; and the act of com- 
position fills and delights the mind with change 
of language and succession of images; every 
couplet when produced is new, and novelty is the 
great source of pleasure. Perhaps no man ever 
thought a line superfluous when he first wrote 
it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of 
invention had subsided. And even if he shoidd 
control his desire of immediate renown, and 
keep his work nine years unpublished, he will 
be still the author, and still in danger of deceiv- 
ing himself : and if he consults his friends, he 
will probably find men who have more kindness 
than judgment, or more fear to offend than de- 
sire to instruct. 

The tediousness of this poem proceeds not 
from the uniformity of the subject, for it is suf- 
ficiently diversified, but from the continued tenor 
of the narration ; in which Solomon relates the 



successive vicissitudes of his own mind, with- 
out the intervention of any other speaker, or the 
mention of any other agent, unless it be Abra ; 
the reader is only to learn what he thought, and 
to be told that he thought wrong. The event 
of every experiment is foreseen, and therefore 
the process is not much regarded. 

Yet the work is far from deserving to be ne- 
glected. He that shall peruse it will be able to 
mark many passages to which he may recur for 
instruction or delight ; many from which the 
poet may learn to write, and the philosopher to 
reason. 

If Prior's poetry be generally considered, his 
praise will be that of correctness and industry, 
rather than of compass, of comprehension, or 
activity of fancy. He never made any effort of 
invention : his greater pieces are only tissues of 
common thoughts ; and his smaller, which con- 
sist of light images or single conceits, are not 
always his own. I have traced him among the 
French epigrammatists, and have been informed 
that he poached for prey among obscure authors. 
The " Thief and Cordelier" is, I suppose, gen- 
erally considered as an original production ; with 
how much j ustice this epigram may tell, which 
was written by Georgius Sabinus, a poet now 
little known or read, though once the friend of 
Luther and Melancthon : 

De Sacerdote Fur em consolante. 

Quidam sacrificus furem comitatus euntem 

Hue ubi dat sontes carnificina neci, 
Ne sis moestus, ait ; snmmi conviva Tonantis 

Jam cum coelitibus (si modo credis) eris. 

Ille gemens, si vera mihi solatia praebes, 
Hospes apud superos sis mens oro, refert. 

Sacrificus contra; mihi non convivia fas est 
Ducere, jejunans hac edo luce nihil. 

What he has valuable he owes to his diligence 
and his judgment. His diligence has justly 
placed him amongst the most correct of the Eng- 
lish poets ; and he was one of the first that reso- 
lutely endeavoured at correctness. He never 
sacrifices accuracy to haste, nor indulges himself 
in contemptuous negligence, or impatient idle- 
ness : he has no careless lines, or entangled sen- 
timents : his words are nicely selected, and his 
thoughts fully expanded. If this part of his 
character suffers an abatement, it must be from 
the disproportion of his rhymes, which have not 
always sufficient consonance, and from the ad- 
mission of broken lines into his " Solomon ;" 
but perhaps he thought, like Cowley, that hem- 
istichs ought to be admitted into heroic poetry. 

He had apparently such rectitude of judgment 
as secured him from every thing that approach- 
ed to the ridiculous or absurd ; but as laws oper- 
ate in civil agency not to the excitement of vir- 
tue, but the repression of wickedness, so judg- 
ment in the operations of intellect can hinder 
faults, but not produce excellence. Prior is 



i 



CONGREVE. 



187 



never low, nor very often sublime. It is said by 
Longinus of Euripides, that he forces himself 
sometimes into grandeur by violence of effort, as 
the lion kindles his fury by the lashes of his own 
tail. Whatever Prior obtains above mediocrity 
seems the effort of struggle and of toil. He has 
many vigorous but few happy lines ; he has 
every thing by purchase, and nothing by gift ; 
he had no nightly visitations of the muse, no in- 
fusions of sentiment or felicities of fancy. 

His diction, however, is more his own than of 
any among the successors of Dryden ; he bor- 
rows no lucky turns, or commodious modes of 
language, from his predecessors. His phrases 
are original, but they are sometimes harsh : as 
he inherited no elegances, none has he bequeath- 
ed. His expression has every mark of laborious 
study ; the line seldom seems to have been form- 
ed at once ; the words did not come till they 
were called, and were then put by constraint 
into their places, where they do their duty, but 
do it sullenly. In his greater compositions there 
may be found more rigid stateliness than grace- 
ful dignity. 

Of versification he was not negligent ; what 
he received from. Dryden he did not lose ; nei- 
ther did he increase the difficulty of writing by 
unnecessary severity, but uses triplets and Alex- 
andrines without scruple. In his preface to 
u Solomon" he proposes some improvements, 
by extending the sense from one couplet to an- 
other, with variety of pauses. This he has at- 
tempted, but without success ; his interrupted 
lines are unpleasing, and his sense as less dis- 
tinct is less striking. 

He has altered the stanza of Spenser, as a 
house is altered by building another in its place 
of a different form. With how little resem- 
blance he has formed his new stanza to that of 
nis master, these specimens will show : 



She flying fast from Heaven's hated face, 
And from the world that her discovered wide, 
Fled to the wasteful wilderness apace, 
From living eyes her open shame to hide, 



And lurk'd in rocks and caves long unespy'd. 
But that fair crew of knights, and Una fair, 
Did in that castle afterwards abide, 
To rest themselves, and weary powers repair, 
Where store they found of all, that dainty was and 
rare. 



To the close rock the frighted raven flies 
Soon as the rising eagle cuts the air : 
The shaggy wolf unseen and trembling lies, 
When the hoarse roar proclaims the lion near. 
Ill-starr'd did we our forts and lines forsake, 
To dare our British foes to open fight : 
Our conquest we by stratagem should make : 
Our triumph had been founded in our flight. 
'Tis ours, by craft and by surprise to gain : 
'Tis theirs to meet in arms, and battle in the plain. 



By this new structure of his lines he has 
avoided difficulties ; nor am I sure that he has 
lost any of the power of pleasing : but he no 
longer imitates Spenser. 

Some of his poems are written without regu- 
larity of measure; for, when he commenced 
poet, he had not recovered from our Pindaric 
infatuation; but he probably lived to be con- 
vinced, that the essence of verse is order and 
consonance. 

His numbers are such as mere diligence may 
attain ; they seldom offend the ear, and seldom 
soothe it ; they commonly want airiness, light- 
ness, and facility : what is smooth is not soft. 
His verses always roll, but they seldom flow. 

A survey of the life and writings of Prior 
may exemplify a sentence which he doubtless 
understood well, when he read Horace at his 
uncle's ; " the vessel long retains the scent 
which it first receives." In his private relax- 
ation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous 
pedantry he exhibited the college. But on 
higher occasions, and nobler subjects, when 
habit was overpowered by the necessity of reflec- 
tion, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, or 
elegance as a poet. 



"^> WW 



CONGREVE. 



William Congreve descended from a family 
in Staffordshire, of so great antiquity that it 
claims a place among the few that extend their 
Jine beyond the Norman Conquest; and was 
the son of William Congreve, second son of 
Richard Congreve, of Congreve and St rat ton. 



He visited, once at least, the residence of his 
ancestors ; and, I believe, more places than one 
are still shown, in groves and gardens, where he 
is related to have written his " Old Bachelor." 
Neither the time nor place of his birth is cer- 
tainly known : if the inscription upon his monu- 



188 



CONGREVE. 



merit be true, he was born in 1672. For the 
place, it was said by himself, that he owed his 
nativity to England, and by every body else, 
that he was born in Ireland. Southern men- 
tioned him, with sharp censure, as a man that 
meanly disowned his native country. The bio- 
graphers assign his nativity to Bardsa, near 
Leeds, in Yorkshire, from the account given by 
himself, as they suppose, to Jacob. 

To doubt whether a man of eminence has told 
the truth about his own birth 3 is, in appearance, 
to be very deficient in candour ; yet, nobody can 
live long without knowing that falsehoods of 
convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which 
no evil immediately visible ensues, except the 
general degradation of human testimony, are 
very lightly uttered ; and, once uttered, are sul- 
lenly supported. Boileau, who desired to be 
thought a rigorous and steady moralist, having 
told a petty lie to Lewis the Fourteenth, con- 
tinued it afterwards by false dates; thinking 
himself obliged in honour, says his admirer, to 
maintain what, when he said it, was so well re- 
ceived. 

Wherever Congreve was born, he was educated 
first at Kilkenny, and afterwards at Dublin, his 
father having some military employment that 
stationed him in Ireland ; but, after having 
passed through the usual preparatory studies, as 
may be reasonably supposed, with great celerity 
and success, his father thought it proper to as- 
sign him a profession by which something might 
be gotten ; and, about the time of the Revolu- 
tion, sent him, at the age of sixteen, to study 
law in the Middle Temple, where he lived for 
several years, but with very little attention to 
statutes or reports. 

His disposition to become an author appeared 
very early, as he very early felt that force of 
imagination, and possessed that copiousness of 
sentiment, by which intellectual pleasure can 
be given. His first performance was a novel, 
called " Incognita, or Love and Duty recon- 
ciled :" it is praised by the biographers, who 
quote some part of the preface, that is, indeed, 
for such a time of life, uncommonly judicious. 
I would rather praise it than read it. 

His first dramatic labour was " The Old 
Bachelor ;" of which he says, in his defence 
against Collier, " that comedy was written, as 
several know, some years before it was acted. 
When I wrote it, I had little thoughts of the 
stage ; but did it to amuse myself in a slow re- 
covery from a fit of sickness. Afterwards, 
through my indiscretion, it was seen, and, in 
some little time more, it was acted; and I, 
through the remainder of my indiscretion, suf- 
fered myself to be drawn into the prosecution of 
a difficTilt and thankless study, and to be involved 
in a perpetual war with knaves and fools." 

There seems to be a strange affectation in 
authors of appearing to have done every thing 



by chance. " The Old Bachelor" was written 
for amusement in the languor of convalescence. 
Yet it is apparently composed with great elab- 
orateness of dialogue, and incessant ambition of 
wit. The age of the writer considered, it is, 
indeed, a very wonderful performance ; for, 
whenever written, it was acted (1693) when he 
was not more than twenty one years old ; and 
was then recommended by Mr. Dryden, Mr. 
Southern, and Mr. Mainwaring. Dryden said, 
that he never had seen such a first play ; but 
they found it deficient in some things requisite 
to the success of its exhibition, and, by their 
greater experience, fitted it for the stage. South- 
ern, used to relate of one comedy, probably of 
this, that, when Congreve read it to the play- 
ers, he pronounced it so wretchedly, that they 
had almost rejected it; but they were afterwards 
so well persuaded of its excellence, that, for 
half a year before it was acted, the manager al- 
lowed its Author the privilege of the house. 

Few plays have ever been so beneficial to the 
writer; for it procured him the patronage of 
Halifax, who immediately made him one of 
the commissioners for licensing coaches, and 
soon after gave him a place in the Pipe-office, 
and another in the Customs of six hundred 
pounds a year. Congreve 5 s conversation must 
surely have been at least equally pleasing with 
his writings. 

Such a comedy, written at such an age, re- 
quires some consideration. As the lighter spe- 
cies of dramatic poetry professes the imitation 
of common life, of real manners, and daily in- 
cidents, it apparently pre-supposes a familiar 
knowledge of many characters, and exact ob- 
servation of the passing world ; the difficulty 
therefore is, to conceive how this knowledge can 
be obtained by a boy. 

But if " The Old Bachelor" be more nearly 
examined, it will be found to be one of those 
comedies which may be made by a mind vigor- 
ous and acute, and furnished with comic char- 
acters by the perusal of other poets, without 
much actual commerce with mankind. The 
dialogue is one constant reciprocation of conceits, 
or clash of wit, in which nothing flows neces- 
sarily from the occasion, or is dictated by na- 
ture. The characters, both of men and women, 
are either fictitious and artificial, as those of 
Heartwell and the ladies ; or easy and common, 
as Wittol, a tame idiot, Bluff, a swaggering 
coward, and Fondlewife, a jealous puritan ; 
and the catastrophe arises from a mistake not 
very probably produced, by marrying a woman 
in a mask. 

Yet this gay comedy, when all these deduc- 
tions are made, will still remain the work of 
very powerful and fertile faculties ; the dialogue 
is quick and sparkling, the incidents such as 
seize the attention, and the wit so exuberant, 
that it " o'er-informs its tenement. 



CONGREVE. 



189 



Next year he gave another specimen of his 
abilities in " The Double Dealer," which was 
not received with equal kindness. He writes 
to his patron, the Lord Halifax, a dedication, 
in which he endeavours to reconcile the reader 
to that which found few friends among the 
audience. These apologies are always useless : 
w de gustibus non est disputandum ;" men may 
be convinced, bitt they cannot be pleased against 
their will. But, though taste is obstinate, it is 
very variable; and time often prevails when 
arguments have failed. 

Queen Mary conferred upon both those plays 
the honour of her presence; and when she 
died, soon after, Congreve testified his grati- 
tude by a despicable effusion of elegiac pastoral ; 
a composition in which all is unnatural, and 
yet nothing is new. 

In another year (1695) his prolific pen pro- 
duced " Love for Love," a comedy of nearer al- 
liance to life, and exhibiting more real manners 
than either of the former. The character of 
Foresight was then common. Dryden calcu- 
lated nativities ; both Cromwell and King Wil- 
liam had their lucky days; and Shaftesbury 
himself, though he had no religion, was said to 
regard predictions. The Sailor is not accounted 
very natural, but he is very pleasant. 

"With this play was opened the New Theatre, 
under the direction of Betterton, the tragedian ; 
where he exhibited, two years afterwards, 
(1687) " The Mourning Bride," a tragedy, so 
written as to show him sufficiently qualified for 
either kind of dramatic poetry. 

In this play, of which, when he afterwards 
revised it, he reduced the versification to greater 
regularity, there is more bustle than sentiment, 
the plot is busy and intricate, and the events 
take hold on the attention ; but except a very 
few passages, we are rather amused with noise, 
nd perplexed with stratagem, than entertained 
with any true delineation of natural characters. 
This, however, was received with more benevo- 
lence than any other si his works, and still con- 
tinues to be acted and applauded. 

But whatever objections may be made either 
to his comic or tragic excellence, they are lost a 
once in the blaze of admiration, when it is re- 
membered that he had produced these four plays 
before he had passed his twenty-fifth year ; be- 
fore other men, even such as are some time to 
shine in eminence, have passed their probation 
of literature, or presume to hope for any other 
notice than such as is bestowed on diligence and 
inquiry. Among all the efforts of early genius, 
which literary history records, I doubt whether 
any one can be produced that more surpasses the 
common limits of'nature than the plays of Con- 
greve. 

About this time began tne long continued 
controversy between Collier and the poets. In 
the reien of Charles the first, the puritans 



had raised a violent clamour against the drama, 
which they considered as an entertainment not 
lawful to Christians, an opinion held by them 
in common with the church of Rome ; and 
Prynne published " Histrio-Mastix," a huge 
volume, in which stage-plays were censured. 
The outrages and crimes of the puritans brought 
afterwards their whole system of doctrine into 
disrepute, and from the Restoration the poets 
and players were left at quiet ; for to have 
molested them would have had the appearance 
of tendency to puritanical malignity. 

This danger, however, was worn away by 
time ; and Collier, a fierce and implacable non- 
juror, knew that an attack upon the theatre 
would never make him suspected for a puritan ; 
he therefore (1698) published "A short View 
of the Immorality and Profaneness of the 
English Stage," I believe with no other motive 
than religious zeal and honest indignation. He 
was formed for a controvertist ; with sufficient 
learning; with diction vehement and pointed, 
though often vulgar and incorrect ; with uncon- 
querable pertinacity ; with wit in the highest de- 
gree keen and sarcastic; and with all those 
powers exalted and invigorated by just confi- 
dence in his cause. 

Thus qualified, and thus incited, he walked 
out to battle, and assailed at once most of the 
living writers, from Dryden to D'Urfey. His 
onset was violent ; those passages, which, while 
they stood single had passed with little notice, 
when they were accumulated and exposed to- 
gether, excited horror ; the wise and the pious 
caught the alarm ; and the nation wondered 
why it had so long suffered irreligion and licen- 
tiousness to be openly taught at the public charge. 

Nothing now remained for the poets but to 
resist or fly. Dryden's conscience, or his pru- 
dence, angry as he was, witnheld him from the 
conflict : Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted 
answers. Congreve, a very young man, elated 
with success, ana impatient of censure, assumed 
an air of confidence and security. His chief 
artifice of controversy is to retort upon his 
adversary his own words ; he is very angry, and, 
hoping to conquer Collier with his own weapons, 
allows himself in the use of every term of con- 
tumely and contempt ; but he has the sword 
without the arm of Scanderbeg ; he has his an- 
tagonist's coarseness, but not his strength. Col- 
lier replied ; for contest was his delight ; he was 
not to be frighted from his purpose or his 
prey. 

The cause of Congreve was not tenable ; 
whatever glosses he might use for the defence or 
palliation of single passages, the general tenor 
and tendency of his plays must always be con- 
demned. It is acknowledged, with universal 
conviction, that the perusal of his works will 
make no man better ; and that their ultimate 
effect is to represent pleasure in alliance with 
Bb 



190 



C O N G R E V E. 



vice, and to relax those obligations by which life 
ought to be regulated. 

The stage found other advocates, and the dis- 
pute was protracted through ten years ; but at 
last comedy grew more, modest, and Collier 
lived to see the reward of his labour in the re- 
formation of the theatre. 

Of the powers by which this important vic- 
tory was achieved, a quotation from " Love for 
Love," and the remark upon it, may afford a 
specimen : 

Sir Samps. Sampson's a very good name ; for 
your Sampsons were very strong dogs from the 
beginning. 

Angel. Have a care— If you remember, the 
strongest Sampson of your name pulled an old 
house over his head at last. 

" Here you have the Sacred History bur- 
lesqued, and Sampson once more brought into the 
house of Dagon, to make sport for the Philis- 
tines !" 

Congreve's last play was "The Way of the 
World ;" which, though as he hints in his dedi- 
cation it was written with great labour and 
much thought, was received with so little favour, 
that, being in a high degree offended and dis- 
gusted, he resolved to commit his quiet and his 
fame no more to the caprices of an audience. 

From this time his life ceased to the public ; he 
lived for himself and for his friends, and among 
his friends was able to name every man of his 
time whom wit and elegance had raised to repu- 
tation : it may be, therefore, reasonably sup- 
posed that his manners were polite and his 
conversation pleasing. 

He seems not to have taken much pleasure in 
writing, as he contributed nothing to the " Spec- 
tator," and only one paper to the " Tatler," 
though published by men with whom he might 
be supposed willing to associate ; and though he 
lived many years after the publication of his 
Miscellaneous Poems, yet he added nothing to 
them, but lived on in literary indolence ; en- 
gaged in no controversy, contending with no 
rival, neither soliciting flattery by public com- 
mendations, nor provoking enmity by malignant 
criticism, but passing his time among the great 
and splendid, in the placid enjoyment of his 
fame and fortune. 

Having owed bis fortune to Halifax, he con- 
tinued always of his patron's party, but, as it 
seems, without violence or acrimony : and his 
firmness was naturally esteemed, as his abilities 
were reverenced. His security, therefore, was 
never violated ; and when, upon the extrusion 
of the whigs, some intercession was used lest 
Congreve should be displaced, the Earl of Ox 
ford made this answer : 

" Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni, 
Nrc taro arersus equos Tyria sol jungit ab urbe." 

He that was thus honoured by the adverse 



party might naturally expect. to be advanced 
when his friends returned to power, and he was 
accordingly made secretary for the Island of 
Jamaica ; a place, I suppose, without trust or 
care, but which, with his post in the Customs, 
is said to have afforded him twelve hundred 
pounds a year. 

His honours were yet far greater than his 
profits. Every writer mentioned him with re- 
spect ; and, among other testimonies to his 
merit, Steele made him the patron of his Mis- 
cellany, and Pope inscribed to him his transla- 
tion of the " Iliad." 

But he treated the Muses with ingratitude ; 
for, having long conversed familiarly with the 
great, he wished to be considered rather as a man 
of fashion than of wit ; and, when he received 
a visit from Voltaire, disgusted him by the des- 
picable foppery of desiring to be considered not 
as an author but a gentleman ; to which the 
Frenchman replied, " that if he had been only a 
gentleman he should not have come to visit 
him. " 

In his retirement he maybe supposed to have 
applied himself to books ; for he discovers more 
literature than the poets have commonly at- 
tained. But his studies were in his latter days 
obstructed by cataracts in his eyes, which at last 
terminated in blindness. This melancholy 
state was aggravated by the gout, for which he 
sought relief by a journey to Bath ; but, being 
overturned in his chariot, complained from that 
time of a pain in his side, and died, at his house 
in Surrey-street, in the Strand, January 29, 
1728-9. Having lain in state in the Jerusalem 
Chamber, he was buried in Westminster Ab- 
bey, where a monument is erected to his memory 
by Henrietta, Dutchess of Marlborough, to 
whom, for reasons either not known or not 
mentioned, he bequeathed a legacy, of about 
ten thousand pounds, the accumulation of 
attentive parsimony; which, though to her 
superfluous and useless, might have given great 
assistance to the ancient family from which he 
descended, at that time, by the imprudence of 
his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress. 

Congreve has merit of the highest kind ; he 
is an original Avriter, who borrowed neither the 
models of his plot nor the manner of his dia- 
logue. Of his plays I cannot speak distinctly, 
for since I_ inspected them many years have 
passed ; but what remains upon my memory 
is, that his characters are commonly ficti- 
tious and artificial, with very little of nature, 
and not much of life. He formed a peculiar 
idea of comic excellence, which he supposed to 
consist in gay remarks and unexpected answers ; 
but that which he endeavoured he seldom failed 
of performing. His scenes exhibit not much of 
humour, imagery, or passion ; his personages 
are a kind of intellectual gladiators ; every sen- 



CONGREVE. 



19! 



tence is to ward or strike ; the contest of smart- 
ness is never intermitted ; his wit is a meteor 
playing to and fro with alternate coruscations. 
His comedies have, therefore, in some degree, 
the operation of tragedies ; they surprise rather 
than divert, and raise admiration oftener than 
merriment. But they are the works of a mind 
replete with images and quick in comhination. 

Of his miscellaneous poetry I cannot say any 
thing very favourahle. The powers of Congreve 
seem to desert him when he leaves the stage, as 
Antseus was no longer strong than when he 
could touch the ground. It cannot he observed 
without wonder, thai a mind so vigorous and 
fertile in dramatic compositions, should on any 
other occasion discover nothing but impotence 
and poverty. He has in these little pieces 
neither elevation of fancy, selection of language, 
nor skill in versification ; yet, if I were required 
to select from the whole mass of English poetry 
the most poetical paragraph, I know not what 
I could prefer to an exclamation in " The 
Mourning Bride : 

ALMERIA. 

It was a fancied noise ; for all is hush'd. 

. EONORA. 

It bore the accent of a human voice. 

ALMERIA. 

It was thy fear, or else some transient wind 
Whistling through hollows of this vaulted aisle : 
We'll listen— 



LEONORA. 



Hark 



ALMERIA. 

No, all is hush'd and still as death.— 'Tis dreadful ! 
How reverend is the face of this tall pile, 
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, 
To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof, 
By its own weight made steadfast and immoveable, 
Looking tranquillity ! it strikes an awe 
And terror on my aching sight ; the tombs 
And monumental caves of death look cold, 
And shoot a dullness to my trembling heart. 
Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice, 
Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear 
Thy voice — my own affrights me with its echoes. 

He who reads these lines enjoys for a moment 
the powers of a poet; he feels what he remem- 
bers to have felt before ; but he feels it with 
great increase of sensibility ; he recognizes a 
familiar image, but meets it again amplified and 
expanded, embellished with beauty and enlarged 
with majesty. 

Yet could the Author, who appears here to 
have enjoyed the confidence of Nature, lament 
the death of Queen Mary in lines like these : 

The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills 
Furrow the brows of all th' impending hills. 
The water-gods to flood their rivulets turn, 
And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting 

urn. 
The fauns forsake the woods, the nymphs the grove, 
And round the plain in sad distraction rove : 



In prickly brakes their tender limbs they tear, 
And leave on thorns their locks of golden hair. 
With their sharp nails, themselves the satyrs wound. 
And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the 

ground. 
Lo Pan himself, beneath a blasted oak, 
Dejected lies, his pipe in pieces broke. 
See Pales weeping too, in wild despair, 
And to the piercing winds her bosom bare. 
And see yon fading myrtle, where appears 
The Queen of Love, all bath'd in flowing tears ! 
See how she wrings her hands, and beats her bi-east, 
And tears her useless girdle from her waist? 
Hear the sad murmurs other sighing doves 
For grief they sigh, forgetful of their 1oy66. 

And, many years after, he gave no proof that 
time had improved his wisdom or his wit ; forj 
on the death of the Marquis of Blandford, this 
was his song : 

And now the winds, which had so long been still, 
Began the swelling air with sighs to fill : \ 
The water-nymphs, who motionless remain'd, 
Like images of ice, while she complain' d, 
Now loos'd their streams ; as when descending rains 
Roll the steep torrents headlong o'er the plains. 
The prone creation who so long had gazed, 
Charm'd with her cries, and at her griefs amazed, 
Began to roar and howl with horrid yell, 
Dismal to hear and terrible to tell! 
Nothing but groans and sighs were heard around, 
And echo multiplied each mournful sound. 

In both these funeral poems, when he has yelled 
ont many syllables of senseless dolour, he dismis- 
ses his reader with senseless consolation : from 
the grave of Pastora rises a light that forms a 
star ; and where Amaryllis wept for Amyntas, 
from every tear sprung up a violet. 

But William is his hero, and of William he 
will sing ; 

The hovering winds on downy wings shall wait 

around, 
And catch and waft to foreign lands, the flying 

sound. 

It cannot but be proper to show what they shall 
have to catch and carry : 

'Twas now, when flowery lawns the prospect 
made, 
And flowing brooks beneath a forest-shade, 
A lowing heifer, loveliest of the herd, 
Stood feeding by ; while two fierce bulls prepared 
Their armed heads for fight, by fate of war to prove 
The victor worthy of the fair one's love ; 
Unthought presage of what met next my view 
For soon the shady scene withdrew. 
And now, for woods, and fields, and springing 

flowers, 
Behold a town arise, bulwark'd with walls and lof- 
ty towers ; 
Two rival armies all the plain o'erspread, 
Each in battalia ranged, snd shining arms array'd ; 
With eager eyes beholding both from far 
Namur, the prize and mistress of the war. 

" The Birth of the Muse" is a miserable fic- 
tion. One good line it has, which was bor- 



192 



BLACKMORE. 



rowed from Dryden. 
ihese : 



The concluding verses are 



This said, no more remain'd. Th' ethereal host 
Again impatient crowd the crystal coast. 
The father now, within his spacious hands, 
Encompass'd all the mingled mass of seas and 

lands; 
And, having heaved aloft the ponderous sphere,* 
He jfannch'd the world, to float in ambient air. 

Of his irregular poems, that to Mrs. Arabella 
Hunt seems to be the best ; his " Ode for St. 
Cecilia's Day," however, has some lines which 
Pope had in his mind when he wrote his own. 

His imitations of Horace are feebly paraphras- 
tical, and the additions which he makes are of 
little value. He sometimes retains what were 
more properly omitted, as when he talks of ver- 
vain and gums to propitiate Venus. 

Of his translations, the satire of Juvenal was 
written very early, and may therefore be for- 
given, though it have not the massiness and vig- 
our of the original. In all his versions strength 
and sprightliness are wanting; his Hymn to 
Venus, from Homer, is perhaps the best. His 
lines are weakened with expletives, and his 
rhymes are frequently imperfect. 

His petty poems are seldom worth the cost of 
criticism ; sometimes the thoughts are false, and 
sometimes common. In his verses on Lady 



Oethin, the latter part is in imitation of Dry- 
den's Ode on Mrs. Killigrew ; and Doris, that 
has been so lavishly flattered by Steele, has 
indeed some lively stanzas, but the expression 
might be mended ; and the most striking part 
of the character had been already shown in 
" Love for Love." His " Art of Pleasing" 
is founded on a vulgar, but perhaps impracti- 
cable, principle, and the staleness of the sense is 
not concealed by any novelty of illustration or 
elegance of diction. 

This tissue of poetry, from which he seems fo 
have hoped a lasting name, is totally neglected, 
and known only as it appended to his plays. 

While comedy or while tragedy is regarded, 
his plays are likely to be read ; but, except* 
what relates to the stage, I know not that he 
has ever written a stanza that is sung or a 
couplet that is quoted. The general character 
of his Miscellanies is, that they show little wit 
and little virtue. 

Yet to him it must be confessed that we are 
indebted for the correction of a national error, 
and for the cure of our Pindaric madness. He 
first taught the English writers that Pindar's 
odes were regular; and, though certainly he 
had not the fire requisite for the higher species 
of lyric poetry, he has shown us, that enthusiasm 
has its rules, and that in mere confusion thera 
is neither grace nor greatness. 



BLACKMORE. 



Sir Richard Blackmore is one of those men 
whose writings have attracted much notice, but 
of whose life and manners very little has been 
communicated, and whose lot it has been to 
be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by 
friends. 

He was the son of B,obert Elackmore, of 
Corsham, in Wiltshire, styled by Wood, Gen- 
tleman, and supposed to have been an attorney. 
Having been for some time educated in a coun- 
try school, he was sent, at thirteen, to West- 
minster ; and, in 1668, was entered at Edmund 
Hall, in Oxford, where he took the degree of 
111. A. June 3, 1676, and resided thirteen years; 
a much longer time than it is usual to spend at 
the university ; and which he seems to have 
passed with very little attention to the business 
of the place ; for, in his poems, the ancient 
names of nations or places, which he often pro- 
duces, are pronounced by chance. He afterwards 
travelled; at Padua he was made doctor of phy- 



sic ; and, after having wandered abott a year 
and a half on the Continent, returned home. 

In some part of his life, it is not known 
when, his indigence compelled him to teach a 
school, an humiliation with which, though it 
certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies 
did not forget to reproach him, when he became 
conspicuous enough to excite malevolence ; and 
let it be remembered for his honour, that to 
have been once a school-master, is the only 
reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, 
animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private 
life. 

When he first engaged in the study of physic, 
he inquired, as he says, of Dr. Sydenham, 
what authors he should read, and was directed 



* " Except I" Dr. Warton exclaims, *' Is not this 
a high sort of poetry V He mentions, likewise, that 
Con£reve's Opera, or Oratorio, of " Semele" waa 
set to music by Handel, I believe in 1743.— C. 



BLACKMORE. 



193 



by Sydenham to " Don Quixote;" "which," 
said he, " is a very good book ; I read it still." 
The perverseness of mankind makes it often 
mischievous in men of eminence to give way 
to merriment ; the idle and the illiterate will 
long shelter themselves under this foolish apoph- 
thegm. 

Whether he rested satisfied with this direc- 
tion, or sought for better, he commenced physi- 
cian, and obtained high eminence and extensive 
practice. He became fellow of the College of 
Physicians, April 12, 1687, being one of the 
thirty which, by the new charter of King 
James, were added to the former fellows. His 
residence was in Cheapside,* and his friends 
were chiefly in the city. In the early part of 
Blackmore's time, a citizen was a term of re- 
proach ; and his place of abode was another to- 
pic to which his adversaries had recourse, in the 
penury of scandal. 

Blackmore, therefore, was made a poet not 
by necessity but inclination, and wrote not for 
a livelihood but for fame , or, if he may tell his 
own motives, for a nobler purpose, to engage 
poetry in the cause of virtue. 

I believe it is peculiar to him, that his first 
public work was an heroic poem. He was not 
known as a maker of verses till he published 
(in 1695) " Prince Arthur," in ten books, writ- 
ten, as he relates, " by such catches and starts, 
and in such occasional uncertain hours, as his 
profession afforded, and for the greatest part in 
coffee-houses, or in passing up and down the 
streets." For the latter part of this apology he 
was accused of writing " to the rumbling of his 
chariot- wheels." He had read, he says, "but 
little poetry throughout his whole life ; and for 
fifteen years before had not written a hundred 
verses, except one copy of Latin verses in praise 
of a friend's book." 

He thinks, and with some reason, that from 
such a performance perfection cannot be expec- 
ted ; but he finds another reason for the severity 
of his censures, which he expresses in language 
such as Cheapside easily furnished. " 1 am not 
free of the poet's company, having never kissed 
the governor's hands : mine is therefore not so 
much as a permission-poem, but a downright 
interloper. Those gentlemen who carry on their 
poetical trade in a joint stock would certainly do 
what they could to sink and ruin an unlicensed 
adventurer, notwithstanding I disturbed none of 
their factories, nor imported any goods they 
have ever dealt in." He had lived in the city 
till he had learnt its note. 

That " Prince Arthur" found many readers 
is certain ; for in two years it had three edi- 
tions ; a very uncommon instance of favourable 
reception, at a time when literary curiosity was 
yet confined to particular classes of the nation. 

* At Sadlers' Hall.J 



Such success naturally raised animosity; and 
Dennis attacked it by a formal criticism, more 
tedious and disgusting than the work which he 
condemns. To this censure may be opposed the 
approbation of Locke and the admiration of Mo- 
lineaux, which are found in their printed let- 
ters. Molineaux is particularly delighted with 
the song of Mopas, which is therefore subjoined 
to this narrative. 

It is remarked by Pope, that what " raises 
the hero often sinks the man." Of Blackmore 
it may be said, that as the poet sinks, the man 
rises ; the animadversions of Dennis, insolent 
and contemptuous as they were, raised in him 
no implacable resentment : he and his critic 
were afterwards friends ; and in one of his lat- 
ter works he praises Dennis as " equal to Boi- 
leau in poetry, and superior to him in critical 
abilities." 

He seems to have been more delighted with 
praise than pained by censure, and, instead of 
slackening, quickened his career. Having in 
two years produced ten books of " Prince 
Arthur," in two years more (1697) he sent into 
the world " King Arthur" in twelve. The 
provocation was now doubled, and the resent- 
ment of wits and critics may be supposed to have 
increased in proportion. He found, however, 
advantages more than equivalent to all their 
outrages ; he was this year made one of the phy- 
sicians in ordinary to King William, and ad- 
vanced by him to the honour of knighthood, 
with the present of a gold chain and a medal. 

The malignity of the wits attributed his 
knighthood to his new poem ; but King William 
was not very studious of poetry; and Black- 
more perhaps had other merit, for he says, in 
his dedication to " Alfred," that " he had a 
greater part in the succession of the house of 
Hanover than ever he had boasted." 

What Blackmore could contribute to the suc- 
cession, or what he imagined himself to have 
contributed, cannot now be known. That he 
had been of considerable use, I doubt not but he 
believed, for I hold him to have been very hon- 
est ; but he might easily make a false estimate 
of his own importance : those whom their vir- 
tue restrains from deceiving others are often 
disposed by their vanity to deceive themselves. 
Whether he promoted the succession or not, he 
at least approved it, and adhered invariably to 
his principles and party through his whole life. 

His ardour of poetry still continued ; and not 
long after (1700) he published " A Paraphrase 
on the Book of Job," and other parts of the 
Scripture. This performance Dryden, who 
pursued him with great malignity, lived long 
enough to ridicule in a prologue. 

The wits easily confederated against him, as 
Dryden, whose favour they almost all courted, 
was his professed adversary. He had besides 
given them reason for resentment; as, in his 



194 



BLACKMORE. 



preface to Prince Arthur, he had said of the 
dramatic writers almost all that was alleged af- 
terwards by Collier; but Blackmore's censure 
was cold and general, Collier's was personal and 
ardent ; Blackmore taught his reader to dislike 
what Collier incited him to abhor. 

In his preface to " King Arthur" he endea- 
voured to gain at least one friend, and propiti- 
ated Congreve by higher praise of his " Mourn- 
ing Bride" than it has obtained from any other 
critic. 

The same year he published " A Satire on 
Wit j" a proclamation of defiance, which united 
the poets almost all against him, and which 
brought upon him lampoons and ridicule from 
every side. This he doubtless foresaw, and evi- 
dently despised ; nor should his dignity of mind 
be without its praise, had he not paid the hom- 
age to greatness which he denied to genius, and 
degraded himself by conferring that authority 
over the national taste which he takes from the 
poets upon men of high rank and wide influ- 
ence, but of less wit and not greater virtue. 

Here is again discovered the inhabitant of 
Cheapside, whose head cannot keep his poetry 
unmingled with trade. To hinder that intel- 
lectual bankruptcy which he affects to fear, he 
will erect a Bank for Wit. 

In this poem he justly censured Dryden's im- 
purities, but praised his powers: though in a 
subsequent edition he retained the satire and 
omitted the praise. What was his reason, I 
kngwnot; Dry den was then no longer in his way. 

His head still teemed with heroic poetry; and 
(1705) he published " Eliza," in ten books. I 
am afraid that the world was now weary of 
contending about Blackmore's heroes : for I do 
not remember that by any author, serious or 
comical, I have found " Eliza" either praised 
or blamed. She " dropped," as it seems, " dead- 
born from the press." It is never mentioned, 
and was never seen by me till I borrowed it for 
the present occasion. Jacob says, " it is cor- 
rected and revised for another impression;" but 
the labour of revision was thrown away. 

From this time he turned some of his thoughts 
to the celebration of living characters ; and wrote 
a poem on the Kit-cat Club, and Advice to the 
Poets how to celebrate the Duke of Marlbor- 
ough ; but on occasion of another year of sue- 
cess, thinking himself qualified to give more in- 
struction, he again wrote a poem of " Advice to 
a Weaver of Tapestry." Steele was then pub- 
lishing the " Tatler;" and, looking around him 
for something at which he might laugh, unluck- 
ily lighted on Sir Richard's work, and treated 
it with such contempt, that, as Fenton observes, 
he put an end to the species of writers that gave 
Advice to Painters. 

Not long after (1712) he published " Crea- 
tion," a philosophical poem, which has been by 
my recommendation inserted in the late collec- 



tion. Whoever judges of this by any other of 
Blackmore's performances will do it injury. 
The praise given it by Addison (Spec. 339.) is 
too well known to be transcribed: but some 
notice is due to the testimony of Dennis, who 
calls it a " philosophical poem, which has equal- 
led that of Lucretius in the beauty of its versifi- 
cation, and infinitely surpassed it in the solidity 
and strength of its reasoning." 

W T hy an author surpasses himself, it in nat- 
ural to inquire. I have heard from Mr. Draper, 
an eminent bookseller, an account received by 
him from Ambrose Philips, " That Blackmore, 
as he proceeded in this poem, laid his manu- 
script from time to time before a club of wits 
with whom he associated ; and that every man 
contributed, as he could, either improvement or 
correction: so that," said Philip"^ 'there ere 
perhaps no where in the book thirty lines to- 
gether that now stand as they were originally 
written." 

The relation of Philips, I suppose, was true ; 
but when all reasonable, all credible, allowance 
is made for this friendly revision, the Author 
will still retain an ample dividend of praise* for 
to him must always be assigned the plan of the 
work, the distribution of its parts, the choice of 
topics, the train of argument, and, what is yet 
more, the general predominance of philosophical 
judgment and poetical spirit. Correction seldom 
effects more than the suppression of faults ; a 
Lappy line, or a single elegance, may perhaps 
be added ; but of a large work the general char- 
acter must always remain; the original consti- 
tution can be very little helped by local reme- 
dies ; inherent and radical dulness will never be 
much invigorated by extrinsic animation. 

This poem, if he had written nothing else, 
would have transmitted him to posterity among 
the first favourites of the English muse ; but to 
make verses was his transcendent pleasure, and 
as he was not deterred by censure he was not 
satiated with praise. 

He deviated, however, sometimes into other 
tracks of literature, and condescended to enter- 
tain his readers with plain prose. When the 
" Spectator" stopped, he considered the polite 
world as destitute of entertainment: and, in 
concert with Mr. Hughes, who wrote every 
third paper, published three times a week " The 
Lay Monastery," founded on the supposition 
that some literary men, whose characters are 
described, had retired to a house in the country 
to enjoy philosophical leisure, and resolved to 
instruct the public, by communicating their dis- 
quisitions and amusements. Whether any real 
persons were concealed under fictitious names, 
is not known. The hero of the club is one Mr. 
Johnson ; such a constellation of excellence, that 
his character shall not be suppressed, though 
there is no great genius in the design nor skill in 
the delineation. 



BLACKMORE. 



195 



*•' The first I shall name is Mr. Johnson, a 
gentleman that owes to nature excellent faculties 
and an elevated genius, and to industry and ap- 
plication many acquired accomplishments. His 
taste is distinguishing, just, and delicate: his 
judgment clear, and his reason strong, accom- 
panied with an imagination full of spirit, of 
great compass, and stored with refined ideas. 
He is a critic of the first rank ; and, what is his 
peculiar ornament, he is delivered from the os- 
tentation, malevolence, and supercilious temper, 
that so often hlemish men of that character. 
His remarks result from the nature and reason 
of things, and are formed by a judgment fret 
and unbiassed by the authority of those who 
have lazily followed each other in the same 
beaten track of thinking, and are arrived only 
at the reputation of acute grammarians and com- 
mentators : men, who have been copying one 
another many hundred years, without any im- 
provement ; or, if they have ventured farther, 
have only applied in a mechanical manner the 
rules of ancient critics to modern writings, and 
with great labour discovered nothing but their 
own want of judgment and capacity. As Mr. 
Johnson penetrates to the bottom of his subject, 
by which means his observations are solid and 
natural, as well as delicate, so his design is 
always to bring to light something useful and 
ornamental ; whence his character is the reverse 
to theirs, who have eminent abilities in insig- 
nificant knowledge, and a great felicity in find- 
ing out trifles. He is no less industrious to 
search out the merit of an author than sagacious 
in discerning his errors and defects; and takes 
more pleasure in commending the beauties than 
exposing the blemishes of a laudable writing ; 
like Horace, in a long work, he can bear some 
deformities, and justly lay them on the im- 
perfection of human nature, which is incapable 
of faultless productions. When an excellent 
drama appears in public, and by its intrinsic 
worth attracts a general applause, he is not 
stung with envy and spleen ; nor does he ex- 
press a savage nature, in fastening upon the 
celebrated author, dwelling upon his imaginary 
defects, and passing over his conspicuous ex- 
cellences. He treats all writers upon the same 
impartial footing; and is not, like the little 
critics, taken up entirely in finding out only 
the beauties of the ancient, and nothing but the 
errors of the modern writers. Never did any 
one express more kindness and good nature to 
young and unfinished authors; he promotes 
their interests, protects their reputation, exten- 
uates their faults, and sets off their virtues, and 
by his candour guards them from the severity 
of his judgment. He is not like those dry 
critics who are morose because they cannot 
write themselves, but is himself master of a 
good vein in poetry; and though he does not 
often employ it, yet he has sometimes entertain- 



ed his friends with his unpublished perfor- 
mances." 

The rest of the Lay Monks seem to be but 
feeble mortals, in comparison with the gigantic 
Johnson ; who yet, with all his abilities, and 
the help of the fraternity, could drive the pub- 
lication but to forty papers, which were after- 
wards collected into a volume, and called in the 
title " A Sequel to the Spectators." 

Some years afterwards (1716 and 171?) he 
published two volumes of Essays in prose, 
which can be commended only as they are 
written for the highest and noblest purpose— 
the promotion of religion. Blackmore's prose 
is not the prose of a poet : for it is languid, 
sluggish, and lifeless ; his diction is neither 
daring nor exact, his flow neither rapid nor easy, 
and his periods neither smooth nor strong. His 
account of Wit will show with how little 
clearness he is content to think, and how little 
his thoughts are recommended by his language. 
" As to its efficient cause, wit owes its 
production to an extraordinary and peculiar 
temperament in the constitution of the possessor 
of it, in which is found a concurrence of regular 
and exalted ferments, and an affluence of animal 
spirits, refined and rectified to a great degree of 
purity ; whence, being endowed with vivacity, 
brightness, and celerity, as well in their reflec- 
tions as direct motions, they become proper 
instruments for the sprightly operations of the 
mind ; by which means the imagination can 
with great facility range the wide field of nature; 
contemplate an infinite variety of objects, and, 
by observing the similitude and disagreement of 
their several qualities, single out and abstract, 
and then suit and unite, those ideas which will 
best serve its purpose. Hence beautiful allu- 
sions, surprising metaphors, and admirable sen- 
timents, are always ready at hand ; and while 
the fancy is full of images, collected from in- 
numerable objects and their different qualities, 
relations, andvhabitudes, it can at pleasure 
dress a common notion in a strange but becom- 
ing garb; by which, as before observed, the 
same thought will appear a new one, to the 
great delight and wonder of the hearer. What 
we call genius results from this particular happy 
complexion in the first formation of the person 
that enjoys it, and is Nature's gift, but diversi- 
fied by various specific characters and limita- 
tions, as its active fire is blended and allayed by 
different proportions of phlegm, or reduced and 
regulated by the contrast of opposite ferments. 
Therefore, as there happens in the composition 
of a facetious genius a greater or less, though 
still an inferior, degree of judgment and pru- 
dence, one man of wit will be varied and dis- 
tinguished from another." 

In these Essays he took little care to propi- 
tiate the wits ; for he scorns to avert their malic* 
at the expense of virtue or of truth. 



196 



BLACK MORE. 



" Several, in their books, have many sarcas- 
tical and spiteful strokes at religion in general ; 
while others make themselves pleasant with the 
principles of the Christian. Of the last kind, 
this age has seen a most audacious example in 
the book entitled « A Tale of a Tub." Had 
this writing been published in a pagan or popish 
nation, who are justly impatient of all indig- 
nity offered to the established religion of their 
country, no doubt but the author would have 
received the punishment he deserved. But the 
fate of this impious buffoon is very different; 
for in a protestans kingdom, zealous of their 
civil and religious immunities, he has not only 
escaped affronts and the effects of public resent- 
ment, but has been caressed and patronised by 
persons of great figure and of all denomina- 
tions. Violent party-men, who differed in all 
things besides, agreed in their turn to show par- 
ticular respect and friendship to this insolent de- 
rider of the worship of his country, till at last 
the reputed writer is not only gone off with im- 
punity, but triumphs in his dignity and prefer- 
ment. I do not know that any inquiry or 
search was ever made after this writing, or that 
any reward was ever offered for the discovery of 
the author, or that the infamous book was ever 
condemned to be burnt in public : whether this 
proceeds from the excessive esteem and love that 
men in power, during the late reign, had for wit, 
or their defect of Zealand concern for the Chris- 
tian religion, will be determined best by those 
who are best acquainted with their character." 

In another place he speaks with becoming ab- 
horrence of a godless author, who has burlesqued 
a Psalm. This author was supposed to be Pope, 
who published a reward for any one that would 
produce the coiner, of the accusation, but never 
denied it ; and was afterwards the perpetual and 
incessant enemy of Blackmore. 

One of his essays is upon the Spleen, which is 
treated by him so much to his own satisfaction, 
that he has published the same thoughts in the 
same words; first in the " Lay Monastery ;" 
then in the Essay ; and then in the preface to a 
Medical Treatise on the Spleen. One passage, 
which I have found already twice, I will here 
exhibit, because I think it better imagined, and 
better expressed, than could be expected from the 
common tenor of his prose : 

" — As the several combinations of splenetic 
madness and folly produce an infinite variety of 
irregular understanding, so the amicable accom- 
modation and alliance between several virtues 
and vices produce an equal diversity in the dis- 
positions and manners of mankind ; whence it 
comes to pass, that as many monstrous and ab- 
surd productions are found in the moral as in 
the intellectual world. How surprising is it to 
observe, among the least culpable men, some 
whose minds are attracted by heaven and earth 
with a seeming equal force; some who are 



proud of humility ; others who are censorious 
and uncharitable, yet self-denying and devout j 
some who join contempt of the world with sor- 
did avarice ; and others who preserve a great 
degree of piety, with ill-nature and ungoverned 
passions ! Nor are instances of this inconsistent 
mixture less frequent among bad men, where 
we often, with admiration, see persons at once 
generous and unjust, impious lovers of their 
country and flagitious heroes, good-natured 
sharpers, immoral men of honour, and libertines 
who will sooner die than change their religion ; 
and though it is true that repugnant coalitions 
of so high a degree are found but in a part of 
mankind, yet none of the whole mass, either 
good or bad, are entirely exempted from some 
absurd mixture." 

He about this time (Aug. 22, 1716) became 
one of the Elects of the College of Physicians ; 
and was soon after (Oct. 1) chosen Censor. He 
seems to have arrived late, whatever was the 
reason, at his medical honours, 

Having succeeded so well in his book on 
" Creation," by "which he established the great 
principle of all religion, he thought his under- 
taking imperfect, unless he likewise enforced the 
truth of revelation ; and for that purpose added 
another poem, on " Redemption." He had like- 
wise written, before his " Creation," three books 
on the " Nature of Man." 

The lovers of musical devotion have always 
wished for a more happy metrical version than 
they have yet obtained of the " Book of Psalms." 
This wish the piety of Blackmore led him to 
gratify ; and he produced (1721) " A new Ver- 
sion of the Psalms of David, fitted to the Tunes 
used in Churches;" which, being recommended 
by the archbishops and many bishops, obtained 
a licence for its admission into public worship ; 
but no admission has it yet obtained, nor has it 
any right to come where Brady and Tate had 
got possession. Blackmore's name mustbe add- 
ed to those of many others who, by the same at- 
tempt, have obtained only the praise of meaning 
well. 

He was not yet deterred from heroic poetry. 
There was another monarch of this island (for 
he did not fetch his heroes from foreign coun- 
tries) whom he considered as worthy of the epic 
muse; and he dignified " Alfred" (1723) with 
twelve books. But the opinion of the nation 
was now settled ; a hero introduced by Black- 
more was not likely to find either respect or 
kindness; " Alfred" took his place by " Eliza" 
in silence and darkness ; benevolence was 
ashamed to favour, and malice was weary of in- 
sulting. Of his four epic poems, the first had 
such reputation and popularity as enraged the 
critics ; the second was at least known enough 
to be ridiculed ; the two last had neither friends 
nor enemies. 

Contempt is a land of gangrene, which, if it 



BLACKMORE. 



197 



seizes one part of a. character, corrupts all the 
rest by degrees. Blackmore, being despised as 
a poet, was in time neglected as a physician ; his 
practice, which was once invidiously great, for- 
sook him in the latter part of his life ; but being 
by nature, or by principle, averse from idleness, 
he employed his unwelcome leisure in writing 
books on physic, and teaching others to cure 
those whom he could himself cure no longer. 1 
know not whether I can enumerate all the 
treatises by which he has endeavoured to diffuse 
the art of healing ; for there is scarcely any dis- 
temper, of dreadful name, which he has not 
taught the reader how to oppose. He has writ- 
ten on the small-pox, with a vehement invective 
against inoculation ; on consumption, the spleen, 
the gout, the rheumatism, the king's evil, the 
dropsy, the jaundice, the stone, the diabetes, 
and the plague. 

Of those books, if I had read them, it could 
not be expected that I should be able to give a 
critical account. I have been told that there is 
something in them of vexation and discontent, 
discovered by a perpetual attempt to degrade 
physic from its sublimity, and to represent it as 
attainable without much previous or concomi- 
tant learning. By the transient glances which 
I have thrown upon them, I have observed an 
affected contempt of the ancients, and a super- 
cilious derision of transmitted knowledge. Of 
this indecent arrogance the following quotation 
from his preface to the " Treatise on the Small- 
pox" will afford a specimen : in which, when 
the reader finds, what I fear is true, that, when 
he was censuring Hippocrates, he did not know 
the difference between aphorism and apophthegm, 
he will not pay much regard to his determina- 
tions concerning ancient learning. 

" As for his book of Aphorisms, it is like my 
Lord Bacon's of the same title, a book of jests, 
or a grave collection of trite and trifling observa- 
tions ; of which though many are true and 
certain, yet they signify nothing, and may afford 
diversion, but no instruction ; most of them 
being much inferior to the sayings of the wise 
men of Greece, which yet are so low and mean, 
that we are entertained every day with more 
valuable sentiments at the table conversation of 
ingenious and learned men." 

I am unwilling, however to leave him in total 
disgrace, and will therefore quote from another 
preface a passage less reprehensible. 

" Some gentlemen have been disingenuous 
and unjust to me, by wresting and forcing my 
meaning, in the preface to another book, as if I 
condemned and exposed all learning, though 
they knew I declared that I greatly honoured 
and esteemed all men of superior literature and 
erudition ; and that I only undervalued false or 
superficial learning, that signifies nothing for 
the service of mankind; and that as to physic, 
I expressly affirmed that learning must be joined 



with native genius to make a physician of the 
first rank ; but if those talents are separated, I 
asserted, and do still insist, that a man of native 
sagacity and diligence will prove a more able 
and useful practiser than a heavy notional 
scholar, encumbered with a heap of confused 
ideas." 

He was not only a poet and a physician, but 
produced likewise a work of a different kind, 
" A true and impartial History of the Con- 
spiracy against King William, of glorious 
Memory, in the Year 1695." This I have 
never seen, but suppose it at least compiled with 
integrity. He engaged likewise in theological 
controversy, and wrote two books against the 
Arians ; " Just Prejudices against the Arian 
Hypothesis;" and " Modern Arians unmask- 
ed." Another of his works is " Natural Theo- 
logy, or Moral Duties considered apart from 
Positive; with some Observations on the De- 
sirableness and Necessity of a supernatural Re- 
velation." This was the last book that he pub- 
lished. He left behind him " The accomplished 
Preacher, or an Essay upon Divine Eloquence;" 
which was printed after his death by Mr. 
White, of Nayland, in Essex, the minister who 
attended his death-bed, and testified the fervent 
piety of his last hours. He died on the eighth 
of October, 1729. 

Blackmore, by the unremitted enmity of the 
wits, whom he provoked more by his virtue 
than his dulness, has been exposed to worse 
treatment than he deserved. His name was so 
long used to point every epigram upon dull 
writers, that it became at last a bye-word of 
contempt ; but it deserves observation, that 
malignity takes hold only of his writings, and 
that his life passed without reproach, even when 
his boldness of reprehension naturally turned 
upon him many eyes desirous to espy faults, 
which many tongues would have made haste to 
publish. But those who could not blame could 
at least forbear to praise, and therefore of his 
private life and domestic character there are no 
memorials. 

As an author he may justly claim the honours 
of maguanimity. The incessant attacks of his 
enemies, whether serious or merry, are never 
discovered to have disturbed his quiet or to have 
lessened his confidence in himself; they neither 
awed him to silence nor to caution ; they neither 
provoked him to petulance nor depressed him to 
complaint. While the distributors of literary 
fame were endeavouring to depreciate and de- 
grade him, he either despised or defied them, 
wrote on as he had written before, and never 
turned aside to quiet them by civility or repress 
them by confutation. 

He depended with great security on his ow'i 
powers, and perhaps was for that reason lei* 
diligent in perusing books. His literature was 
Co 



198 



BLACKMORE. 



I think, but small. What he knew of antiquity 
I suspect him to have gathered from modern 
compilers ; but, though he could not boast of 
much critical knowledge, his mind was stored 
wi th general principles, and he left minute re- 
searches to those whom he considered as little 
minds. 

With this disposition he -wrote most of his 
poems. Having formed a magnificent design, 
he was careless of particular and subordinate 
elegances ; he studied no niceties of versification, 
he waited for no felicities of fancy, but caught 
his first thoughts in the first words in which 
they were presented ; nor does it appear that he 
saw beyond his own performances, or had ever 
elevated his views to that ideal perfection which 
every genius born to excel is condemned always 
to pursue, and never overtake. In the first 
suggestions of his imagination he acquiesced ; he 
thought them good, and did not seek for better. 
His works may be read a long time without the 
occurrence of a single line that stands prominent 
from the rest. 

The poem on " Creation" has, however, the 
appearance of more circumspection; it wants 
neither harmony of numbers, accuracy of 
thought, nor elegance of diction ; it has either 
been written with great care, or, what cannot 
be imagined of so long a work, with such felici- 
ty as made care less necessary. 

Its two constituent parts are ratiocination 
and description. To reason in verse is allowed 
to be difficult ; but Blackmore not only reasons 
in verse, but very often reasons poetically, and 
finds the art of uniting ornament with strength, 
and ease with closeness. This is a skill which 
Pope might have condescended to learn from 
him, when he needed it so much in his " Moral 
Essays." 

In his descriptions, both of life and nature, 
the poet and the philosopher happily co-operate ; 
truth is recommended by elegance, and elegance 
sustained by truth. 

In the structure and order of the poem, not 
only the greater parts are properly consecutive, 
but the didactic and illustrative paragraphs are 
so happily mingled, that labour is relieved by 
pleasure, and the attention is led on through a 
long succession of varied excellence to the ori- 
ginal position, the fundamental principle of 
wisdom and of virtue. 

As the heroic poems of Blackmore are now 
little read, it is thought proper to insert, as a 
specimen from " Prince Arthur," the song of 
Mopas, mentioned by Molineux : 

But that which Arthur with most pleasure heard 
Were noble strains, by Mopas sung, the bard, 
Who to his harp in lofty verse began, 
And through the secret maze of Nature ran. 
He the Great Spirit sung, that all things filTd, 
'i'hat the iuuiulcuoua waves of Chaos slilPd ; 



Whose nod disposed the jarring seeds to peace, 
And made the wars of hostile atoms cease. 
All beings, we in fruitful nature find, 
Proceeded from the Great Eternal mind ; 
Streams of his unexhausted spring of power, 
And, cherish'd with his influence, endure. 
He spread the pure cerulean fields on high, 
And arch'd the chambers of the vaulted sky, 
Which he, to suit their glory with their height, 
Adorn'd with globes, that reel, as drunk with light. 
His hand directed all the tuneful spheres, 
He turn'd their orbs and polished all the stars. 
He fill'd the Sun's vast lamp with golden light, 
And bid the silver Moon adorn the night. 
He spread the airy Ocean without shores, 
Where birds are wafted with their feather'd oars. 
Then sung the bard how the light vapours rise 
From the warm earth, and cloud the smiling skies ; 
He sung how some, chill'd in their airy flight, 
Fall scatter'd down in pearly dew by night; 
How some, raised higher, sit in secret steams 
On the reflected points of bounding beams, 
Till, chill'd with cold, they shape the ethereal plain, 
Then on the thirsty earth descend in rain ; 
How some, whose parts a slight contexture show, 
Sink, hovering through the air, in fleecy snow; 
How part is spun in silken threads, and clings 
Entangled in the grass in glewy strings ; 
How others stamp to stones, with rushing sound 
Fall from their crystal quarries to the ground ; 
How some are laid in trains, that kindled fly, 
In harmless fires by night, above the sky ; 
How some in winds blow with impetuous force, 
And carry ruin where they bend their course, 
While some conspire to form a gentle breeze, 
To fan the air and play among the trees ; 
How some, enraged, grow turbulent and loud, 
Pent in the bowels of a frowning cloud, 
That cracks, as if the axis of the world 
Was broke, and heaven's bright towers were down- 
wards hurl'd. 
He sung how earth's wide ball, at Jove's command, 
Did in the midst on airy columns stand ; 
And how the soul of plants, in prison held, 
And bound with sluggish fetters, lies conceal'd 
Till, with the Spring's warm beams, almost released 
From the dull weight with which it lay oppress'd, 
Its vigour spreads, and makes the teeming earth 
Heave up, and labour with the sprouting birth: 
The active spirit freedom seeks in vain, 
It only works and twists a stronger chain; 
Urging its prison's sides to break away, 
It makes that wider where 'tis forced to stay : 
Till, having form'd its living house, it rears 
Its head, and in a tender plant appears. 
Hence springs the oak, the beauty of the grove, 
Whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move. 
Hence grows the cedar, hence the swelling vine 
Does round the elm its purple clusters twine, 
Hence painted flowers the smiling gardens bless, 
Both with then fragrant scent and gaudy dress. 
Hence the white lily in full beauty grows, 
Hence the blue violet, and blushing rose. 
He sung how sun-beams brood upon the earth, 
And in the glebe hatch such a numerous birth ; 
Which way the genial warmth in Summer storms 
Turns putrid vapours to a bed of worms; 
How raiD, transform'd by this prolific power, 
Falls from the clouds an animated shower. 
He sung the embryo's growth within the womb. 
And how the part.; their various shapes assume; 



F E N T O N. 



199 



With what rare art the wondrous structure's wrought I That no part useless, none misplaced we see, 
From one crude mass to such perfection brought ; | None are forgot, and more would monstrous be. 



FENTON, 



The brevity with which I am to write the ac- 
count of Elijah Fenton is not the effect of 
indifference or negligence. I have sought intel- 
ligence among his relations in his native coun- 
try, but have not obtained it. 

He was born near Newcastle, in Staffordshire, 
of an ancient family,* whose estate was very 
considerable ; but he was the youngest of eleven 
children, and being, therefore, necessai'ily des- 
tined to some lucrative employment, was sent 
first to school, and afterwards to Cambridge ;f 
but, with many other wise and virtuous men, 
who, at that time of discord and debate, consult- 
ed conscience, whether well or ill-informed, 
more than interest, he doubted the legality of 
the government, and, refusing to qualify him- 
self for public employment by the oaths required, 
left the university without a degree ; but I never 
heard that the enthusiasm of opposition impelled 
him to separation from the church. 

* He was bora at Shelton, near Newcastle, May 
20, 1683; and was the youngest of eleven children of 
John Fenton, an attorney at law, and one of the co- 
roners of the county of Stafford. His father died in 
1694 ; and his grave, in the church-yard of Stoke upon 
Trent, is distinguished by the following elegant Latin 
inscription, from the pen of his son : 
H. S. E. 
Joannes Fenton 
de Shelton 
antiqua stirpe generosus ; 
juxta reliquias conjugis 

Catherine 

forma, moribus, pietate, 

optimo viro dignissimaj : 

Qui 

intemerata in ecclesiam fide, 

et virtutihus intaminatis enituit ; 

necnon ingenii lepore 

bonis artibus expoliti, 

ac animo erga omnes benevolo, 

sibi suisque jucundus visit. 

Decern annos uxori dilectaj superstes 

magnum sui desiderium bonis 

omnibus reliquit, 

f salutis humanae 1694, 

Anno | a;tatis sua; 56. 

See Gent. Mag. 1791, vol. LXI. p. 703.— N. 

t He was entered of Jesus College, and took a 
bachelor's degree in 1704 ; but it appears by the list 
of Cambridge graduates that he removed in 1726 to 
Trinity Hall— N. 



By this perverseness of integrity he was 
driven out a commoner of Nature, excluded 
from the regular modes of profit and prosperity, 
and reduced to pick up a livelihood uncertain 
and fortuitous ; but it must be remembered that 
he kept his'name unsullied, and never suffered 
himself to be reduced, like too many of the same 
sect, to mean arts and dishonourable shifts. 
Whoever mentioned Fenton, mentioned him 
with honour. , 

The life that passes in penury must necessa^- 
rily pass in obscurity. It is impossible to trace 
Fenton from year to year, or to discover what 
means he used for his support. He was awhile 
secretary to Charles, Earl of Orrery, in Flan- 
ders, and tutor to his young son, who after- 
wards mentioned him with great esteem and 
tenderness. He was at one time assistant in the 
school of Mr. Bonwicke, in Surrey ; and at an- 
other kept a school for himself, at Seven-oaks, 
in Kent, which he brought into reputation ; but 
was persuaded to leave it (1710) by Mr. St. 
John, with promises of a more honourable em- 
ployment. 

His opinions as he was a nonjuror, seem not 
to have been remarkably rigid. He wrote with 
great zeal and affection the praises of Queen 
Anne, and very willingly and liberally extolled 
the Duke of Marlborough, when he was (1707) 
at the height of his glory. 

He expressed still more attention to Marl- 
borough and his family, by an elegiac pastoral 
on the Marquis of Blandford, which could be 
prompted only by respect or kindness ; for nei- 
ther the Duke nor Dutchess desired the praise, 
or liked the cost of patronage. 

The elegance of his poetry entitled him to the 
company of the wits of his time, and the ami-- 
ableness of his manners made him loved where- 
ever he was known. Of his friendship to 
Southern and Pope there are lasting monu- 
ments. 

He published in 1707 a collection of poems. 

By Pope he was once placed in a station that 
might have been of great advantage. Craggs, 
when he was advanced to be secretary of state 
(about 1720) feeling his own want of literature, 
desired Pope to procure him an instructor, by 
whose help he might supply the deficiencies of 
his education. Pope recommended Fenton, in 



wo 



F E N T O N. 



whom Craggs found all that he was seeking. 
There was now a prospect of ease and plenty, 
for Fenton had merit and Craggs had generosi- 
ty ; but the small-pox suddenly put an end to 
the pleasing expectation. 

When Pope, after the great success of his " Il- 
iad," undertook the " Odyssey," being, as it 
seems, weary of translating, he determined to 
engage auxiliaries. — Twelve books he took to 
himself, and twelve he distributed between 
Broome and Fenton : the books allotted to Fen- 
ton were the first, the fourth, the nineteenth, 
and the twentieth. It is observable, that he did 
not take the eleventh, which he had before trans- 
lated into blank verse ; neither did Pope claim 
it, but committed it to Broome. How the two 
associates performed their parts is well known 
to the readers of poetry, who have never been 
able to distinguish their books from those of 
Pope. 

In 1723 was performed his tragedy of " Mari- 
amne;" to which Southern, at whose house it 
was written, is said to have contributed such 
hints as his theatrical experience supplied. — 
When it was shown to Gibber, it was rejected 
by him, with the additional insolence of advis- 
ing Fenton to engage himself in some employ- 
ment of honest labour, by which he might obtain 
that support which he could never hope from his 
poetry. The play was acted at the other thea- 
tre; and the brutal petulance of Cibber was 
confuted, though, perhaps, not shamed, by gen- 
eral applause. Fenton's profits are said to have 
amounted to near a thousand pounds, with 
which he discharged a debt contracted by his at- 
tendance at court. 

Fenton seems to have had some peculiar sys- 
tem of versification. " Mariamne" is written in 
lines of ten syllables, with few of those redun- 
dant terminations which the drama not only 
admits, but requires, as more nearly approach- 
ing to real dialogue. The tenor of his verse is 
so uniform that it cannot be thought casual : and 
yet upon what principle he so constructed it, is 
difficult to discover. 

The mention of his play brings to my mind a 
very trifling occurrence. Fenton was one day 
in the company of Broome, his associate, and 
Ford, a clergyman, at that time too well known, 
whose abilities, instead of furnishing convivial 
merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, 
might have enabled him to excel among the vir- 
tuous and the Avise. They determined all to see 
" The Merry "Wives of Windsor," which was 
acted that night; and Fenton, as a dramatic 
poet, took them to the stage-door, where the 
door-keeper, inquiring who they were, was told 
that they were three very necessary men, Ford, 
Broome, and Fenton. The name in the play 
which Pope restored to Brook was then Broome. 

It was perhaps after tins play that he under- 
took to revise the punctuation of Milton's poems, 



which, as the author neither wrote the original 
copy nor corrected the press, was supposed capa- 
ble of amendment. To this edition he pre- 
fixed a short and elegant account of Milton's 
i lifp written at once with tenderness and integ- 
1 rity. 

He published likewise (1729) a very splendid 
edition of Waller, with notes, often useful, often 
entertaining, but too much extended by long 
quotations from Clarendon. Illustrations drawn 
from a book so easily consulted should be made 
by reference rather than transcription. 

The latter part of his life was calm and plea- 
sant. The relict of Sir W T illiam Trumbull in- 
I vited him, by Pope's recommendation, to edu- 
j cate her son ; whom he first instructed at home, 
: and then attended to Cambridge. The lady af- 
terwards detained him with her as the auditor 
of her accompts. He often wandered to Lon- 
don, and amused himself with the conversation 
of his friends. 

He died, in 1730, at Easthamstead in Berk- 
shire, the seat of Lady Trumbull ; and Pope, 
who had been always his friend, honoured him 
with an epitaph, of which he borrowed the two 
first lines from Crashaw. 

Fenton was tall and bulky, inclined to corpu- 
lence, which he did not lessen by much exercise ; 
I for he was very sluggish and sedentary, rose 
late, and when he had risen, sat down to his 
books or papers. A woman that once waited 
on him in a lodging told him, as she said, that 
that he would "lie a-bed, and be fed with a 
spoon." This, however, was not the worst that 
might have been prognosticated ; for Pope says, 
in his Letters, that " he died of indolence ;" but 
his immediate distemper was the gout. 

Of his morals and his conversation the account 
is uniform ; he was never named but with praise 
and fondness, as a man in the highest degree 
amiable and excellent. Such was the character 
given him by the Earl of Orrery, his pupil ; 
such is the testimony of Pope ;* and such were 
the suffrages of all who could boast of his ac- 
quaintance. 

By a former writer of his life a story is told 
which ought not to be forgotten. He used, in 
the latter part of his time, to pay his relations in 
the country a yearly visit. At an entertain- 
ment made for the family by his elder brother, 
he observed, that one of his sisters, who had 
married unfortunately, was absent ; and found, 
upon inquiry, that distress had made her thought 
unworthy of invitation. As she was at no great 
distance, he refused to sit at the table till she 
was called, and when she had taken her place 
was careful to show her particular attention. 

His collection of poems is now to be consider- 
ed. The '•' Ode to the Sun" is written upon a 
common plan, without uncommon sentiments ; 

* Spence, 



F E N T O N. 



201 



but its greatest fault is its length. No poem 
should be long, of which the purpose is only to 
strike the fancy, without enlightening the un- 
derstanding by precept, ratiocination, or nar- 
rative. A blaze first pleases and then tires the 
sight. 

Of " Florelio" it is sufficient to say, that it 
is an occasional pastoral, which implies some- 
thing neither natural nor artificial, neither 
comic nor serious. 

The next Ode is irregular, and therefore de- 
fective. As the sentiments are pious, they 
cannot easily be new ; for what can be added 
to topics on which successive ages have been 
employed? 

Of the " Paraphrase on Isaiah" nothing very 
favourable can be said. Sublime and solemn 
prose gains little by a change to blank verse ; 
and tbe paraphrast has deserted his original, 
by admitting images not Asiatic, at least not 
Judaical j 

Returning Peace, 

Dove-eyed, and robed in white — 

Of his petty poems some are very trifling, 
without any thing to be praised, either in the 
thought or expression. He is unlucky in his 
competitions ; he tells the same idle tale with 
Congreve, and does not tell it so well. He 
translates from Ovid the same epistle as Pope; 
but I am afraid not with equal happiness. 

•To examine his performances one by one 
would be tedious. His translation from Ho- 
mer into blank verse will find few readers, 
while another can be had in rhyme. The piece 
addressed to Lambarde is no disagreeable speci- 
men of epistolary poetry ; and his ode to Lord 
Gower was pronounced by Pope the next ode 
in the English language to Dryden's " Cecilia." 
Fenton may be justly styled an excellent versi- 
fier and a good poet. » 

Whatever I have said of Fenton is confirmed 
by Pope in a letter, by which he communicated 
to Broome an account of his death. 

To the Revd. Mr. Broome. 
At Pulham, near Hailstone 
Nor 
[By Beccles Bag.] Suffolke. 

* Dr. Sir, 

1 intended to write to you on this melan- 
choly subject, the death of Mr. Fenton, before 
yrs came ; but stay'd to have informed myself 
and you of ye circumstances of it. All I hear 
is, that he felt a Gradual Decay, tho' so early 
in Life, and was declining for 5 or 6 months. 
It was not, as I apprehended, the Gout in his 



Stomach, but I believe rather a Complication 
first of Gross Humours, as he was naturally 
corpulent, not discharging themselves, as he 
used no sort of Exercise. No man better bore 
ye approaches of his Dissolution (as I am told) 
or with less ostentation yielded up his Being. 
The great modesty wch you know was natural 
to him, and ye great Contempt he had for all 
sorts of Vanity and Parade, never appeared 
more than in his last moments : He had a con- 
scious Satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, 
in feeling himself honest, true, and unpretend- 
ing to more than was his own. So he died, as 
he lived, with that secret, yet sufficient, Con- 
tentment. 

As to any Papers left behind him, I dare say 
they can be but few ; for this reason, he never 
wrote out of Vanity, or thought much of the 
Applause of men. I know an instance where 
he did his utmost to conceal his own merit that 
way ; and if we join to this his natural Love of 
Ease, I fancy we must expect little of this sort ; 
at least I hear of none except some few further 
remarks on Waller (wch his cautious integrity 
made him leave an order to be given to Mr. 
Tonson) and perhaps, tho' 'tis many years since 
I saw it, a Translation of ye first Book of Op- 
pian. He had begun a tragedy of Dion, but 
made small progress in it. 

As to his other Affairs, he died poor, but 
honest, leaving no Debts, or Legacies; except 
of a few pds to Mr. Trumbull and my Lady, 
in token of respect. Gratefulness, and mutual 
Esteem. 

I shall with pleasure take upon me to draw 
this amiable, quiet, deserving, unpretending 
Christian and Philosophical character, in his 
Epitaph. There truth may be spoken in a few 
words : as for Flourish, & Oratory, & Poetry, 
I leave them to younger and more lively Wri- 
ters, such as love writing for writing sake, and 
wd rather shew their own Fine Parts, yn Re- 
port the valuable ones of any other man. So 
the Elegy I renounce. 

I condole with you from my heart, on the 
loss of so worthy a man, and a Friend to us 
both. Now he is gone, I must tell you he has 
done you many a good office, and set your char- 
acter in ye fairest light to some who either mis- 
took you, or knew you not. I doubt not he 
has done the same for me. 

Adieu : Let us love his memory, and profit 
by his example. I am very sincerely 
Dr Sir 

Your affectionate 
& real Servant 

Aug. 29th, 1730. A. Pope. 



GAY. 



John Gay, descended from an old family, that 
had been long in possession of the manor of 
Goldworthy,* in Devonshire, was horn in 1689, 
at or near Barnstaple, where he was educated 
by Mr. Luck, who taught the school of that 
town with good reputation, and a little before 
he retired from it, published a volume of Latin 
and English verses. Under such a master he 
was likely to form a taste for poetry. Being 
born without prospect of hereditary riches, he 
was sent to London in his youth, and placed 
apprentice with a silk-mercer. 

How long he continued behind the counter, 
or with what degree of softness and dexterity 
he received and accommodated the ladies, as he 
probably took no delight in telling it, is not 
known. The report is, that he was soon weary 
of either the restraint or servility of his occupa- 
tion, and easily persuaded his master to dis- 
charge him. 

The Dutchess of Monmouth, remarkable for 
inflexible perseverance in her demand to be 
treated as a princess, in 1712 took Gay into her 
service as secretary : by quitting a shop for such 
service he might gain leisure, but he certainly 
advanced little in the boast of independence. 
Of his leisure he made so good use, that he 
published next year a poem on " Rural Sports," 
and inscribed it to Mr. Pope, who was then 
rising fast into reputation. Pope was pleased 
with the honour; and, when he became ac- 
quainted with Gay, found such attractions in 
his manners and convei'sation, that he seems to 
have received him into his inmost confidence ; 
and a friendship was formed between them 
which lasted to their separation by death, with- 
out any known abatement on either part. Gay 
was the general favourite of the whole associa- 
tion of wits ; but they regarded him as a play- 
fellow rather than a partner, and treated him 
with more fondness than respect. 

Next year be published " The Shepherd's 
Week," six English pastorals, in which the 
images are drawn from real life, such as it ap- 
pears among the rustics in parts of England re- 
mate from London. Steele, in some papers of 
" The Guardian," had praised Ambrose Philips, 
as the pastoral writer that yielded only to 
Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser. Pope, who. 
had also published pastorals, not pleased to be 



* Golduorthy does not appear in the Villarc. 
Dr. J. Holdswoi thy is probably meant.— C« 



overlooked, drew up a comparison of his own 
compositions with those of Philips, in which he 
covertly gave himself the preference, while he 
seemed to disown it. Not content with this, he 
is supposed to have incited Gay to write " The 
Shepherd's Week;" to show, that if it be ne- 
cessary to copy nature with minuteness, rural 
life must be exhibited such as grossness and 
ignorance have made it. So far the plan was 
reasonable : but the pastorals are introduced by 
a proeme, written with such imitation as they 
could obtain of obsolete language, and by con- 
sequence in a style that was never spoken nor 
written in any age or in any place. 

But the effect of reality and truth became 
conspicuous, even when the intention was to 
show them grovelling and degraded. These 
Pastorals became popular, and were read with 
delight, as just representations of rural man- 
ners and occupations, by those who had no in- 
terest in the rivalry of the poets, nor knowledge 
of the critical dispute. 

In 1713 he brought a comedy called " The 
Wife of Bath" upon the stage, but it received 
no applause ; he printed it, however, and seven- 
teen years after, having altered it, and, as he 
thought, adapted it more to the public taste, he 
offered it again to the town : but, though he 
was flushed with the success of the " Beggar's 
Opera," had the mortification to see it again 
rejected. 

In the last year of Queen Anne's life, Gay 
was made secretary to the Earl of Clarendon, 
ambassador to the court of Hanover. This was 
a station that naturally gave him hopes of kind- 
ness from every party ; but the Queen's death 
put an end to her favours, and he had dedicated 
his " Shepherd's Week" to Bolingbroke, which 
Swift considered as the crime that obstructed all 
kindness from the house of Hanover. 

He did not, however, omit to improve the 
right which his office had given him to the 
notice of the royal family. On the arrival of 
the Princess of Wales, he wrote a poem, and 
obtained so much favour, that both the Prince 
and Princess went to see his " What d'ye call 
it," a kind of mock-tragedy, in which the ima- 
ges were comic, and the action grave ; so that, 
as Pope relates, Mr. Cromwell, who could not 
hear what was said, was at a loss how to recon- 
cile the laughter of the audience with the solem- 
nity of the scene. 

Of this performance the value certainly is 
but little ; but it was one of the lucky trifles that 



GAY. 



203 



give pleasure by novelty, and was so much 
favoured by the audience, that envy appeared 
against it in the form of criticism ; and Griffin, 
a player, in conjunction with Mr. Theobald, a 
man afterwards more remarkable, produced a 
pamphlet called " The Key to the What d'ye 
call it;" which, says Gay, " calls me a block- 
head, and Mr. Pope a knave." 

But fortune has always been inconstant. 
Not long afterwards (1717) he endeavoured to 
entertain the town with " Three hours after 
Marriage;" a comedy written, as there is 
sufficient reason for believing, by the joint 
assistance of Pope and Arbuthnot. One pur- 
pose of it was to bring into contempt Dr. Wood- 
ward, the Fossilist, a man not really or justly 
contemptible. It had the fate which such out- 
rages deserve ; the scene in which Woodward 
was directly and apparently ridiculed, by the in- 
troduction of a mummy and a crocodile, disgust- 
ed the audience, and the performance was driven 
off the stage with general condemnation. 

Gay is represented as a man easily incited to 
hope, and deeply depressed when his hopes were 
disappointed. This is not the character of a 
hero ; but it may naturally imply something 
more generally welcome, a soft and civil com- 
panion. Whoever is apt to hope good from 
others is diligent to please them ; but he that 
believes his powers strong enough to force their 
own way, commonly tries only to please himself. 

He had been simple enough to imagine thatf 
those who laughed at the " What d'ye call it" 
would raise the fortune of its Author ; and, find- 
ing nothing done, sunk into dejection. His 
friends endeavoured to divert him. The Earl 
of Burlington sent him (1716) into Devonshire; 
the year after, Mr. Pulteney took him to Aix ; 
and in the following year Lord Harcourt invit- 
ed him to his seat, where, during his visit, the 
two rural lovers were killed with lightning, as 
is particularly told in Pope's Letters. * 

Being now generally known, he published 
(1720) his poems by subscription, with such suc- 
cess, that he raised a thousand pounds ; and 
called his friends to a consultation, what use 
might be best made of it. Lewis, the steward 
of Lord Oxford, advised him to intrust it to the 
funds, and live upon the interest ; Arbuthnot 
bade him to intrust it to Providence, and live 
upon the principal ; Pope directed him, and was 
seconded by Swift, to purchase an annuity. 

Gay in that disastrous year* had a present 
from young Craggs of some South-sea stock, and 
once supposed himself to be master of twenty 
thousand pounds. His friends persuaded him 
to sell his share ; but he dreamed of dignity and 
splendour and could not bear to obstruct his own 
fortune. He was then importuned to sell as much 
as would purchase a hundred a year for life, 

* Spence. 



" which," says Fenton, " will make you sure of 
a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every 
day." This council was rejected; the profit 
and principal were lost, and Gay sunk under the 
calamity so low that his life became in danger. 

By the care of his friends, among whom Pope 
appears to have shown particular tenderness, his 
health was restored ; and, returning to his studies, 
he wrote a tragedy called " The Captives," 
which he was invited to read before the Princess 
of Wales. When the hour came, he saw the 
Princess and her ladies all in expectation, and 
advancing with reverence too great for any other 
attention, stumbled at a stool, and falling for- 
wards, threw down a weighty japan screen. The 
Princess started, the ladies screamed, and poor 
Gay, after all the disturbance, was still to read 
his play. 

The fate of " The Captives," which was act- 
ed at Drury Lane in 1723-4, I know not ; * but 
he now thought himself in favour, and under- 
took (1726) to write a volume of Fables for the 
improvement of the young Duke of Cumberland. 
For this he is said to have been promised a re- 
ward, which he had doubtless magnified with 
all the wild expectations of indigence and va- 
nity. 

Next year the Prince and Princess became 
King and Queen, and Gay was to be great and 
happy ; but upon the settlement of the house- 
hold he found himself appointed gentleman usher 
to the Princess Louisa. By this offer he thought 
himself insulted, and sent a message to the 
Queen, that he was too old for the place. There 
seem to have been many machinations employed 
afterwards in his favour ; and diligent court was 
paid to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of 
Suffolk, who was much beloved by the King and 
Queen, to engage her interest for his promotion ; 
but solicitations, verses, and flatteries, were 
thrown away ; the lady heard them, and did 
nothing. 

All the pain which he suffered from the neg- 
lect, or as he perhaps termed it, the ingratitude 
of the court, maybe supposed to have been driven 
away by the unexampled success of the " Beg- 
gar's Opera." This play, written in ridicule of 
the musical Italian drama, was first offered to 
Gibber and his brethren at Drury Lane, and re- 
jected ; it being then carried to Rich, had the 
effect, as was ludicrously said, of making Gay 
rich, and Rich gay. 

Of this lucky piece, as the reader cannot but 
wish to know the original and progress, I have 
inserted the relation which Spence has given, in 
Pope's words. 

" Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. 
Gay, what an odd pretty sort of a thing a New 



* It was acted seven nights. The Author's third 
night was by command of their Royal Highnesses. 



204 



GAY. 



gate pastoral might make. Gay vras inclined to 
try at such a thing for some time ; hut after- 
wards thought it would he hetter to write a co- 
medy on the same plan. This was what gave 
rise to the a Beggar's Opera." He began on 
it ; and when first he mentioned it to Swift, the 
Doctor did not much like the project. As he 
carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both 
of us, and we now and then gave a correction, 
or a word or two of advice ; hut it was wholly 
of his own writing. — When it was done, neither 
of us thought it would succeed. We showed it 
to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, 
it would either take greatly, or be damned con- 
foundedly. — We were all, at the first night of it, 
in great uncertainty of the event ; till we were 
very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke 
of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, 
* It will do — it must do ! I see it in the eyes of 
them. ' This was a good while before the first 
act was over, and so gave us ease soon ; for that 
Duke (besides his own good taste) has a parti- 
cular knack, as any one now living, in discover- 
ing the taste of the public. He was quite right 
in this as usual; the good nature of the audi- 
ence appeared stronger and stronger every act, 
and ended in a clamour of applause." 

Its reception is thus recorded in the notes to 
the " Dunciad:" 

" This piece was received with greater ap- 
lause than was ever known. Besides being 
acted in London sixty-three days without in- 
terruption, and renewed the next season with 
equal applause, it spread into all the great 
towns of England ; was played in many places 
to the thirtieth and fortieth time ; at Bath and 
Bristol fifty, &c. It made its progress into 
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was 
performed twenty-four days successively. The 
ladies earned about with them the favourite 
songs of it in fans, and houses were furnished 
with it in screens. The fame of it was not 
confined to the Author only. The person who 
acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once 
the favourite of the town ; her pictures were 
engraved, and sold in great numbers ; her life 
written, books of letters and verses to her pub- 
lished, and pamphlets made even of her sayings 
and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of Eng- 
land (for that season) the Italian opera, which 
had carried all before it for ten years." 

Of this performance, when it was printed, 
the reception was different, according to the dif- 
ferent opinion of its readers. Swift commend- 
ed it for the excellence of its morality, as a 
piece that " placed all kinds of vice in the 
strongest and most odious light;" but others, 
and among them Dr. Herring, afterwards 
Archbishop of Canterbury, censured it as giv- 
ing encouragement not only to vice but to 
crimes, by making a highwayman the hero, and 
dismissing him at last unpunished. It has been 



even said, that after the exhibition of the " Beg- 
gar's Opera," the gangs of robbers were evi- 
dently multiplied. 

Both these decisions are surely exaggerated. 
The play, like many others, was plainly writ- 
ten only to divert, without any moral purpose, 
and is therefore not likely to do good ; nor can 
it be conceived, without more speculation than 
life requires or admits, to be productive of much 
evil. Highwaymen and housebreakers seldom 
frequent the playhouse, or mingle in any ele- 
gant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to 
imagine that he may rob with safety, because 
he sees Mackheath reprieved upon the stage. 

This objection, however, or some other, ra- 
ther political than moral, obtained such pre- 
valence, that when Gay produced a second part 
under the name of " Polly," it was prohibited 
by the Lord Chamberlain ; and he was forced 
to recompense his repulse by a subscription, 
which is said to have been so liberally bestowed, 
that what he called oppression ended in profit. 
The publication was so much favoured, that 
though the first part gained him four hundred 
pounds, near thrice as much was the profit of 
the second.* 

He received yet another recempence for this 
supposed hardship in the affectionate attention 
of the Duke and Dutchess of Queensberry, 
into whose house he was taken, and with whom 
he passed the remaining part of his life. The 
Duke, considering his want of economy, under- 
took the management of his money, and gave 
it to him as he wanted it.* But it is supposed 
that the discountenance of the court sunk deep 
into his heart, and gave him more discontent 
than the applauses or tenderness of his friends 
could overpower. He soon fell into his old 
distemper, an habitual cholic, and languished, 
though with many intervals of ease and cheer- 
fulness, till a violent fit at last seized him, and 
hurried him to the grave, as Arbuthnot report- 
ed, with more precipitance than he had ever 
known. He died on the 4th of December, 
1732, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
The letter which brought an account of his 
death to Swift was laid by for some days un- 
opened, because when he received it he was 
impressed with the preconception of some mis- 
fortune. 

After his death, was published a second vo- 
lume of " Fables," more political than the 
former. His opera of " Achilles" was acted, 
and the profits were given to two widow sisters, 
who inherited what he left, as his lawful heirs; 
for he died without a will, though he had ga- 
thered* three thousand pounds. There have 
appeared likewise under his name a comedy 
called " The Distressed Wife," and " The Re- 
hearsal at Gotham," a piece of humour. 



* Spexice. 






GRANVILLE. 



205 



The character given him by Pope is this : 
that " he was a natural man, without design, 
who spoke what he thought, and just as he 
thought it;" and that "he was of a timid 
temper, and fearful of giving offence to the 
great;"* which caution, however, says Pope, 
was of no avail. 

As a poet, he cannot be rated very high. He 
was, as I once heard a female critic remark, 
" of a lower order." He had not in any great 
degree the mens divinior, the dignity of genius. 
Much however must be allowed to the author 
of a new species of composition, though it be not 
of the highest kind. We owe to Gay the ballad 
opera ; a mode of comedy which at first was 
supposed to delight only by its novelty, but has 
now by the experience of half a century been 
found so well accommodated to the disposition 
of a popular audience, that it is likely to keep 
long possession of the stage. Whether this new 
drama was the product of judgment or of luck, 
the praise of it must be given to the inventor; 
and there are many writers read with more 
reverence, to whom such merit of originality 
cannot be attributed. 

His first performance, « The Rural Sports," 
is such as was easily planned and executed ; it 
is never contemptible nor ever excellent. The 
" Fan" is one of those mythological fictions 
which antiquity delivers ready to the hand, but 
which, like other things that lie open to every 
one's use, are of little value. The attention 
naturally retires from a new tale of Venus, 
Diana, and Minerva. 

His " Fables" seem to have been a favourite 
work ; for, having published one volume, he 
left another behind him. Of this kind of fables, 
the authors do not appear to have formed any 
distinct or settled notion. Phsedrus evidently 
confounds them with tales; and Gay both with 
tales and allegorical prosopopoeias. A fable or 
apologue, such as is now under consideration, 
seems to be, in its genuine state, a narrative in 
which beings irrational, and sometimes inani- 
mate, arbores loquuntur, non tantum ferce, are, 
for the purpose of moral instruction, feigned to 
act and speak with human interests and passions. 
To this description the compositions of Gay do 

* Speoce. 



not always conform. For a fable he giv&s now 
and then a tale, or an abstracted allegory ; and 
from some, by whatever name they may be 
called, it will be difficult to extract any moral 
principle. They are, however, told with liveli- 
ness ; the versification is smooth ; and the dic- 
tion, though now and then a little constrained 
by the measure or the rhyme, is generally happy. 

To " Trivia" may be allowed all that ifi 
claims ; it is sprightly, various, and pleasant. 
The subject is of that kind which Gay was by 
nature qualified to adorn ; yet some of his de- 
corations may be justly wished away. An 
honest blacksmith might have done for Patty 
what is performed by Vulcan. The appearance 
of Cloacina is nauseous and superfluous; a 
shoe-boy could have been produced by the casual 
cohabitation of mere mortals. Horace's rule is 
broken in both cases ; there is no dignus vindice 
nodus, no difficulty that required any super- 
natural interposition. A patten may be made 
by the hammer of a mortal ; and a bastard may 
be dropped by a human strumpet. On great 
occasions, and on small, the mind is repelled by 
useless and apparent falsehood. 

Of his little poems the public judgment seems 
to be right ; they are neither much esteemed 
nor totally despised. The story of the appari- 
tion is borrowed from one of the tales of Poggio. 
Those that please least are the pieces to which 
Gulliver gave occasion ; for who can much de- 
light in the echo of unnatural fiction ? 

" Dione" is a counterpart to " Amynta" and 
" Pastor Fido," and other trifles of the same 
kind, easily imitated, and unworthy of imitation. 
What the Italians call comedies from a happy 
conclusion, Gay calls a tragedy from a mournful 
event ; but the style of the Italians and of Gay 
is equally tragical. There is something in the 
poetical arcadia so remote from known reality 
and speculative possibility, that we can never 
support its representation through a long work. 
A pastoral of a hundred lines may be endured ; 
but who will hear of sheep and goats, and 
myrtle bowers and purling rivulets, through 
five acts ? Such scenes please barbarians in the 
dawn of literature, and children in the dawn 
of life; but will be for the most part thrown 
away, as men grow wise, and nations grow 
learned. 



GRANVILLE. 



Op George Graxville, or, as others write I Landsdown, of Bideford In the county of 
Greenville, or Grenville, afterwards Lord j Devon, less is known than his name and hhjk 

Dd 



206 



GRANVILLE. 



rank might give reason to expect. He was born 
about 1667, the son of Bernard Greenville, who 
was entrusted by Monk with the most private 
transactions of the Restoration, and the grand- 
son of Sir Bevil Greenville, who died in the 
King's cause, at the battle of Landsdowne. 

His early education was superintended by Sir 
William Ellis ; and his progress was such, that 
before the age of twelve he was sent to Cam- 
bridge,* where he pronounced a copy of bis own 
verses to the Princess Mary d'Este of Modena, 
then Dutchess of York, when she visited the 
University. 

At the accession of King James, being now at 
eighteen, he again exerted his poetical powers, 
and addressed the new monarch in three short 
pieces, of which the first is profane, and the two 
others such as a boy might be expected to pro - 
duce; but he was commended by old Waller, 
who perhaps was pleased to find himself imitat- 
ed in six lines, which, though they begin with 
nonsense, and end with dulness, excited in the 
young Author a rapture of acknowledgment. 

In numbers such as Waller's self might use. 

It was probably about this time that he wrote 
the poem to the Earl of Peterborough, upon his 
accomplishment of the Duke of York's marriage 
with the Princess of Modena, whose charms 
appear to have gained a strong prevalence over 
his imagination, and upon whom nothing ever 
has been charged but imprudent piety, an in- 
temperate and misguided zeal for the propaga- 
tion cf popery. 

However faithful Granville might have been 
to the King, or however enamoured of the 
Queen, he has left no reason for supposing that 
he approved either the artifices or the violence 
with which the King's religion was insinuated 
or obtruded. He endeavoured to be true at 
once to the King and to the Church. 

Of this regulated loyalty he has transmitted 
to posterity a sufficient proof, in the letter which 
he wrote to his father about a month before the 
Prince of Orange landed. 

" Mar, near Doncaster, Oct 6, 1688. 
" To the Honourable Mr. Barnard Granville, 
at the Earl of Bathe's, St. James's. 
" Sir, 
" Your having no prospect of obtaining a 
commission for me can no way alter or cool my 
desire at this important juncture to venture my 
life, in some manner or other, for my king and 
my country. 

I cannot bear living under the reproach of 
lying obscure and idle in a country retirement, 



when every man, who has the least sense of 
honour, should be preparing for the field. 

" You may remember, Sir, with what reluc- 
tance I submitted to your commands upon Mon- 
mouth's rebellion, when no importunity could 
prevail with you to permit me to leave the 
academy : I was too young to be hazarded ; but, 
give me leave to say, it is glorious at any age to 
die for one's country ; and the sooner the nobler 
the sacrifice. 

" I am now older by three years. My uncle 
Bathe was not so old when he was left among 
the slain at the battle of Newbury ; nor yet 
yourself, Sir, when you made your escape from 
your tutor's, to join your brother at the defence 
of Scilly. 

" The same cause has now come round about 
again. The King has been misled ; let those 
who have misled him be answerable for it. 
Nobody can deny but he is sacred in his own 
person ; and it is every honest man's duty to 
defend it. 

" You are pleased to say, it is yet doubtful if 
the Hollanders are rash enough to make such 
an attempt ; but be that as it will, I beg leave 
to insist upon it, that I may be presented to his 
Majesty, as one whose utmost ambition it is to 
devote his life to his service, and my country's, 
after the example of all my ancestors. 

" The gentry assembled at York, to agree 
upon the choice of representatives for the county, 
have prepared an address, to assure his Majesty 
they are ready to sacrifice their lives and for- 
tunes for him upon this and all other occasions ; 
but at the same time they humbly beseech him 
to give them such magistrates as may be agree- 
able to the laws of the land ; for, at present, 
there is no authority to which they can legally 
submit. 

" They have been beating up for volunteers at 
York and the towns adjacent, to supply the 
regiments at Hull ; but nobody will list. 

" By what I can hear, every body wishes well 
to the King ; but they would be glad his minis- 
ters were hanged. 

" The winds continue so contrary, that no 
landing can be so soon as was apprehended ; 
therefore I may hope, with your leave and as- 
sistance, to be in readiness before any action can 
begin. I beseech you, Sir, most humbly and 
most earnestly to add this one act of indulgence 
more to so many other testimonies which 1 have 
constantly received of your goodness ; and be 
pleased to believe me always, with the utmost 
duty and submission, Sir, 

" Your most dutiful son, 

" And most obedient servant, 

" Geo. Granville." 

Through the whole reign of King William he 



* To Trinity College. By the University rogisier 
it appears that he was admitted to his master's de- 
gree in 1679 ; we must, therefore, set the year of his I is supposed to have lived in literary retirement, 
Mrth some years back*—- H. I and indeed had for some time few other pleas- 



GRANVILLE. 



207 



ures but those of study in his power. He was, 
as the biographers observe, the younger son of a 
younger brother ; a denomination by which our 
ancestors proverbially expressed the lowest state 
of penury and dependence. He is said, how- 
ever, to have preserved himself at this time from 
disgrace and difficulties by economy, which he 
forgot or neglected in life more advanced and in 
better fortune. 

About this time he became enamoured of the 
Countess of Newburgh, whom he has celebrated 
with so much ardour by the name of Mira. 
He wrote verses to her before he was three-and- 
twenty, and may be forgiven if he regarded the 
face more than the mind. Poets are sometimes 
in too much haste to praise. 

In the time of his retirement it is probable 
that he composed his dramatic pieces, the " She 
Gallants" (acted 1696), which he revised and 
called " Once a Lover and always a Lover;" 
" The Jew of Venice," altered from Shak- 
speare's "Merchant of Venice" (1698); " He- 
roic Love," a tragedy (1701) ; " The British 
Enchanters" (1706), a dramatic poem; and 
" Peleus and Thetis," a mask, written to ac- 
company " The Jew of Venice." 

The comedies, which he has not printed in 
his own edition of his works, I never saw ; 
" Once a Lover and always a Lover" is said 
to be in a great degree indecent and gross. 
Granville could not admire without bigotry; 
he copied the wrong as well as the right from 
his masters, and may be supposed to have 
learned obscenity from Wycherley, as he learned 
mythology from Waller. 

In his " Jew of Venice," as Rowe remarks, 
the character of Shylock is made comic, and we 
are prompted to laughter instead of detestation. 

It is evident that " Heroic Love" was writ- 
ten and presented on the stage before the death 
of Dryden. It is a mythological tragedy,* upon 
the love of Agamemnon and Chryseis, and 
therefore easily sunk into neglect, though 
praised in verse by Dryden, and in prose by 
Pope. 

It is concluded by the wise Ulysses with this 
speech : 

Fate holds the strings, and men like children move 
But as they're led ; success is from above . 

At the accession of Queen Anne, having his 
fortune improved by bequests from his father, 
and his uncle the Earl of Bath, he was chosen 
into parliament for Fowey. He soon after en- 
gaged in a joint translation of the " Invectives 
against Philip," with a design, surely weak 
and puerile, of turning the thunder of Demos- 
thenes upon the head of Louis. 

He afterwards (in 1706) had his estate again 
augmented by an inheritance from his elder 
brother, Sir Bevil Grenville, who, as he re- 
turned from the government of Barbadoes^ died 



at sea. He continued to serve in parliament ; 
and in the ninth year of Queen Anne was 
chosen knight of the shire for Cornwall. 

At the memorable change of the ministry 
(1710) he was made secretary at war, in the 
place of Mr. Robert Walpole. 

•Next year, when the violence of party made 
twelve peers in a day, Mr. Granville became 
Lord Lansdown Baron Bideford, by a promo- 
tion justly remarked to be not invidious, be- 
cause he was the heir of a family in which two 
peerages, that of the Earl of Bath and Lord 
Granville of Potheridge, had lately become ex- 
tinct. Being now high in the Queen's favour, 
he (1712) was appointed comptroller of the 
household, and a privy counsellor, and to his 
other honours was added the dedication of Pope's 
" Windsor Forest." He was advanced next 
year to be treasurer of the household. 

Of these favours he soon lost all but his title ; 
for at the accession of King George his place 
was given to the Earl of Cholmondeley, and he 
was persecuted with the rest of his party. Hav- 
ing protested against the bill for attainting Or- 
mond and Bolingbroke, he was, after the insur- 
rection in Scotland, seized Sept. 26, 1715, as a 
suspected man, and confined in the Tower till 
Feb. 8, 1717, when he was at last released, and 
restored to his seat in parliament ; where (1719) 
he made a very ardent and animated speech 
against the repeal of the bill to prevent occa- 
sional conformity, which, however, though it 
was then printed, he has not inserted into his 
works. 

Some time afterwards, (about 1722) being 
perhaps embarrassed by his profusion, he went 
into foreign countries, with the usual pretence 
of recovering his health. In this state of leisure 
and retirement he received the first volume of 
Burnet's History, of which he cannot be sup- 
posed to have approved the general tendency, 
and where he thought himself able to detect 
some particular falsehoods. He therefore un- 
dertook the vindication of General Monk from 
some calumnies of Dr. Burnet, and some mis- 
representations of Mr. Echard. This was 
answered civilly by Mr. Thomas Burnet and 
Oldmixon; and more roughly by Dr. Col- 
batch. 

His other historical performance is a defence 
of his relation Sir Richard Greenville, whom 
Lord Clarendon has shown in a form very un- 
amiable. So much is urged in this apology to 
j ustify many actions that have been represented 
as culpable, and to palliate the rest, that the 
reader is reconciled for the greater part ; and it 
is made very probable that Clarendon was by 
personal enmity disposed to think the worst of 
Greenville, as Greenville was also very willing 
to thing the worst of Clarendon. These pieces 
were published at his return to England. 

Being now desirous to conclude his labours, 



203 



YALDE N. 



and enjoy his reputati n, ne published (1732) a 
very beautiful and splendid edition of his works, 
in which he omitted what he disapproved, and 
enlarged what seemed deficient. 

He now went to court, and Avas kindly re- 
ceived by Queen Caroline ; to whom and to the 
Princess Anne he presented his works, with 
verses on the blank leaves, with which he con- 
cluded his poetical labours. 

He died in Hanover-square, Jan. 30, 1735, 
having a few days before buried his wife, the 
Lady Anne Villiers, widow to Mr. Thynne, by 
whom he had four daughters, but no son. 

Writers commonly derive their reputation 
from their works; but there are works which 
owe their reputation to the character of the 
writer. The public sometimes has its favourites 
whom it rewards for one species of excellence 
with the honour due to another. From him 
whom we reverence for his beneficence, we do 
not willingly withhold the praise of genius : a 
man of exalted merit becomes at once an accom- 
plished writer, as a beauty finds no great diffi- 
culty in passing for a wit. 

Granville was a man illustrious by his birth, 
and therefore attracted notice ; since he is by 
Pope styled " the polite," he must be supposed 
elegant in his manners, and generally loved ; he 
was in times of contest and turbulence steady to 
his party, and obtained that esteem which is al- 
ways conferred upon firmness and consistency. 
With those advantages, having learned the art 
of versifying, he declared himself a poet : and 
his claim to the laurel was allowed. 

But by a critic of a later generation, who takes 
tip his book without any favourable prejudices, 
the praise already received will be thought suffi- 
cient ; for his works do not show him to have 
had much comprehension from nature or illu- 
mination from learning. He seems to have had 
no ambition above the imitation of Waller, of 
whom he has copied the faults, and very little 
more. He is for ever amusing himself with 
puerilities of mythology; his King is Jupiter; 
who, if the Queen brings no children, has a 
barren Juno. The Queen is compounded of 



Juno, Venus, and Minerva. His poem on th« 
Dutchess of Grafton's law-suit, after having 
rattled awhile with Juno and Pallas, Mars and 
Alcides, Cassiope, Niobe, and the Propetides, 
Hercules, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, at last 
concludes its folly with profaneness. 

His verses to Mira, which are most frequent- 
ly mentioned, have little in them of either art 
or nature, of the sentiments of a lover or the 
language of a poet : there may be found, now 
and then, a happier effort; but they are com- 
monly feeble and unaffecting, or forced and 
extravagant. 

His little pieces are seldom either sprightly or 
elegant, either keen or witty. They sve trifles 
written by idleness and published by vanity. 
But hi3 prologue? Ind epilogues have a just 
claim to praise. 

The " Progress of Bt auty" seems one of his 
most elaborate pieces, and is not deficient in 
splendour and gayety ; but the merit of original 
thought is wanting. Its highest praise is the 
spirit with which he celebrates King James's 
consort, when she was a queen no longer. 

The " Essay on unnatural Flights in Poetry" 
is not inelegant nor injudicious, and has some- 
thing of vigour beyond most of his other per- 
formances : his precepts are just, and his cau- 
tions proper ; they are indeed not new, but in a 
didactic poem novelty is to be expected only in 
the ornaments and illustrations. His poetical 
preempts are accompanied with agreeable and in- 
structive notes. 

The Mask of " Peleus and Thetis" has here 
and there a pretty line; but it is not always 
melodious, and the conclusion is wretched. 

In his " British Enchanters" he has bidden 
defiance to all chronology, by confounding the 
inconsistent mannei's of different ages ; but the 
dialogue has often the air of Dryden's rhyming 
plays : and his songs are lively, though not very 
correct. This is, I think, far the best of his 
works; for, if it has many faults, it has like- 
wise passages which are at least pretty, though 
they do not rise to any high degree of excel- 
lence. 



YALDE N. 



Thomas Yalden, the sixth son of Mr. John 
Yalden, of Sussex, was born in the city of Exe- 
ter, in 1671. Having been educated in the 
grammar school belonging to Magdalen College, 
in Oxford, he was, in 1690, at the age of nine- 
toer, admitted commoner of Magdalen Hall, 



under the tuition of Josiah Pullen, a man whose 
name is still remembered in the University. He 
became next year one of the scholars of Magda- 
len College, where he was distinguished by a 
lucky accident. 

It was his turn, one day, to pronounce a de 



YALDEN. 



209 



clamation : and Dr. Hough, the president, hap- 
pening to attend, thought the composition too 
good to be the speaker's. Some time after, the 
Doctor finding him a little irregularly busy in 
the library, set him an exercise for punishment; 
and, that he might not be deceived by any arti- 
fice, locked the door. Yalden, as it happened, 
had been lately reading on the subject given, 
and produced with little difficulty a composition 
which so pleased the president, that he told 
him his former suspicions, and promised to 
favour him. 

Among his contemporaries in the College were 
Addison and Sacheverell, men who were in those 
times friends, and who both adopted Yalden to 
their intimacy. Yalden continued, throughout 
his life, to think as probably he thought at first, 
yet did not forfeit the friendship of Addison. 

When Namur was taken by King William, 
Yalden made an ode. There never was any 
reign more celebrated by the poets than that of 
William, who had very little regard for song 
himself, but happened to employ ministers who 
pleased themselves with the praise of patronage. 

Of this ode mention is made in a humorous 
poem of that time, called " The Oxford Lau- 
reat:" in which, after many claims had been 
made and rejected, Yalden is represented as de- 
manding the laurel, and as being called to his 
trial, instead of receiving a reward : 

His crime was for being a felon in verse, 

And presenting his theft to the King ; 
The first was a trick not uncommon or scarce. 

But the last was an impudent thing ; 
Yet what he had stolen was so little worth stealing, 

They forgave him the damage and costs, 
Had he ta'en the whole ode, as he took it peace- 
mealing, 

They had fined him but ten-pence at most. 

The poet whom he was charged with robbing 
was Congreve. v 

He wrote another poem, on the death of the 
Duke of Gloucester. 

In 1700 he became fellow of the College; and 
next year, entering into orders, was presented 
by the society with a living in Warwickshire,* 
consistent with his fellowship, and chosen 
lecturer of moral philosophy, a very honourable 



On the accession of Queen Anne he wrote 
another poem ; and is said, by the author of the 
" Biographia," to have declared himself of the 
party who had the honourable distinction of 
High-churchmen. 

In 1706 he was received into the family of 
the Duke of Beaufort. Next year he became 
doctor in divinity, and soon after resigned his 
fellowship and lecture, and, as a token of his 



• The vicarage of Willoughby, which he resigned 
in 17G8.— N. 



gratitude, gave the College a picture of their 
founder. 

He was made rector of Chalton and Clean- 
ville,* two adjoining towns and benefices in 
Hertfordshire ; and had the prebends, or sine- 
cures, of Deans, Hains, and Pendles, in Devon- 
shire. He had before f been chosen, in 1698, 
preacher of Bridewell Hospital, upon the resig- 
nation of Dr. Atterbury.+ 

From this time he seems to have led a quiet 
and inoffensive life, till the clamour was raised 
about Atterbury's plot. Every loyal eye was 
on the watch for abettors or partakers of the 
horrid conspiracy; and Dr. Yalden, having 
some acquaintance with the bishop, and being 
familiarly conversant with Kelly, his secre- 
tary, fell under suspicion, and was taken into 
custody. 

Upon his examination he was charged with a 
dangerous correspondence with Kelly. The cor- 
respondence he acknowledged ; but maintained 
that, it had no treasonable tendency. His papers 
were seized ; but nothing was found that could 
fix a crime upon him, except two words in his 
pocket-book, thorough-paced doctrine. This ex- 
pression the imagination of his examiners had 
impregnated with treason, and the Doctor was 
enjoined to explain them. Thus pressed, he 
told them that the words had lain unheeded in 
his pocket-book from the time of Queen Anne, 
and that he was ashamed to give an account of 
them ; but the truth was, that he had gratified 
his curiosity one day, by hearing Daniel Bur- 
gess in the pulpit, and those words were a me- 
morial hint of a remarkable sentence by which 
he warned his congregation to " beware of 
thorough-paced doctrine, that doctrine which, 
coming in at one ear, passes through the head, 
and goes out at the other." 

Nothing worse than this appearing in his 
papers, and no evidence arising against him, he 
was set at liberty. 

It will not be supposed that a man of this 
character attained high dignities in the church ; 
but he still retained the friendship and fre- 
quented the conversation of a very numerous 
and splended set of acquaintance. He died July 
16, 1736, in the 66th year of his age. 

Of his poems, many are of that irregular kind 
which, when he formed his poetical character, 
was supposed to be Pindaric. Having fixed his 
attention on Cowley as a model, he has at- 
tempted in some sort to rival him, and has 



* This preferment was given him by the Duke of 
Beaufort. — N. 

+ Not long after. 

% Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at 
Bridewell till his promotion to the bishopric of 
Rochester. Dr. Yalden succeeded him as preacher, 
in June. 171 3»— N. 



210 



T I C K E L L. 



written a " Hymn to Darkness," evidently as a 
counterpart to Cowley's " Hymn to Light." 

This Hymn seems to be his best performance, 
and is, for the most part, imagined with great 
vigour and expressed with great propriety. I 
will not transcribe it. The seven first stanzas 
are good ; but the third, fourth, and seventh, 
are the best ; the eighth seems to involve a con- 
tradiction ; the tenth is exquisitely beautiful ; 
the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, are 
partly mythological and partly religious, and 
therefore not suitable to each other : he might 
better have made the whole merely philosophi- 
cal. 

There are two stanzas in this poem where 
Yalden may be suspected, though hardly con- 
victed, of having consulted the " Hymnus ad 
Umbram" of Wowerus, in the sixth stanza, 
which answers in some sort to these lines : 

Ilia suo praeest nocturnis numine sacris — ■ 
Perque vias errare novis dat spectra figuris, 
Manesque excitos medios ululare per agros 
Sub noctem, et questu notes complere penates. 



And again, at the conclusion : 
Ilia suo senium secludit corpore toto 
Haud numerans jugi fugientia secula lapsu, 
Ergo ubi postremum mundi compage soluttt 
Hanc rerum molem suprema absumpserit hora 
Ipsa leves cineres nube amplectetur opaca, 
Et prisco imperio rursus dominabitur umbra. 

His " Hymn to Light" is not equal to the other. 
He seems to think that there is an east absolute 
and positive where the morning rises. 

In the last stanza, having mentioned the sud- 
den irruption of new-created light, he says, 

Awhile the Almighty wondering stood. 

He ought to have remembered that infinite 
knowledge can never wonder. All wonder is 
the effect of novelty upon ignorance. 

Of his other poems it is sufficient to say, that 
they deserve perusal, though they are not always 
exactly polished, though the rhymes are some- 
times very ill sorted, and though his faults seem 
rather the omissions of idleness than the negli- 
gences of enthusiasm. 



TICKELL. 



Thomas Tickell, the son of the Reverend 
Richard Tickell, was born in 1686, at Bride- 
kirk, in Cumberland ; and in April, 1701, be- 
came a member of Queen's College, in Oxford ; 
in 1708 he was made master of arts ; and, two 
years afterwards, was chosen fellow ; for which, 
as he did not comply with the statutes by taking 
orders, he obtained a dispensation from the 
crown. He held his fellowship till 1726, and 
then vacated it, by marrying, in that year, at 
Dublin. 

Tickell was not one of those scholars who 
wear away their lives in closets; he entered 
early into the world, and was long busy in 
public affairs, in which he was initiated under 
the patronage of Addison, whose notice he is 
eaid to have gained by his verses in praise of 
" Rosamond." 

To those verses it would not have been just to 
deny regard, for they contain some of the most 
elegant encomiastic strains ; and, among the in- 
numerable poems of the same kind, it will be 
hard to find one with which they need to fear a 
comparison. It may deserve observation, that, 
when Pope wrote long afterwards in praise 
of Addison, he has copied, at least has re- 
sembled, Tickell : 



Let joy salute fair Rosamonda's shade, 
And leaves of myrtle crown the lovely maid. 
While now perhaps with Dido's ghost she roves 
And hears and tells the story of their loves : 
Alike they mourn, alike they bless their fate 
Since love, which made them wretched, made them 

great ; 
Nor longer that relentless doom bemoan, 
Which gain'd a Virgil and an Addison. 

Tickell. 

Then future ages with delight shall see 
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's, looks agree ; 
Or in fair series laurelled bards be shown, 
A Virgil there, and here an Addison. 

Pope. 

He produced another piece of the same kind 
at the appearance of " Cato," with equal skill, 
but not equal happiness. 

When the ministers of Queen Anne were ne- 
gotiating with France, Tickell published " The 
Prospect of Peace," a poem, of which the ten- 
dency was to reclaim the nation from the pride 
of conquest to the pleasures of tranquillity. 
How far Tickell, whom Swift afterwards men- 
tioned as Whiggissimus, had then connected him- 
self with any party, I know not ; this poem cer- 
tainly did not flatter the practices or promote 






TICKELL. 



211 



the opinions of the men by whom he was after- 
wards befriended. 

Mr. Addison, however he hated the men then 
in power, suffered his friendship to prevail over 
his public spirit, and gave in the " Spectator" 
such praises of Tickell's poem, that when, after 
having long wished to peruse it, I laid hold on 
it at last, I thought it unequal to the honours 
which it had received, and found it a piece to 
be approved rather than admired. But the 
hope excited by a work of genius being general 
and indefinite, is rarely gratified. It was read 
at that time with so much favour, that six edi- 
tions were sold. 

At the arrival of King George he sung " The 
Royal Progress;" which being inserted in the 
" Spectator" is well known; and of which it is 
just to say, that it is neither high nor low. 

The poetical incident of most importance in 
Tickell's life was his publication of the first 
book of the " Iliad," as translated by himself, 
an apparent opposition to Pope's " Homer," of 
which the first part made its entrance into the 
world at the same time. 

Addison declared that the rival versions were 
both good, but that Tickell's was the best that 
ever was made ; and with Addison, the wits, 
his adherents and followers, were certain to 
concur. Pope does not appear to have been 
much dismayed ; " for," says he, "I have the 
town, that is the mob, on my side." But he 
remarks, that " it is common for the smaller 
party to make up in diligence what they want 
in numbers; he appeals to the people as his 
proper judges ; and, if they are not inclined to 
condemn him, he is in little care about the high- 
flyers at Button's." 

Pope did not long think Addison an impar- 
tial judge ; for he considered him as the writer 
of Tickell's version. The reasons for his sus- 
picion I will literally transcribe from Mr. 
Spence's Collection. 

" There had been a coldness (said Mr. Pope) 
between Mr. Addison and me for some time ; 
and we had not been in company together, for a 
good while, any where but at Button's Coffee- 
house, where I used to see him almost every 
day. — On his meeting me there one day in par- 
ticular, he took me aside, and said he should be 
glad to dine with me, at such a tavern, if I 
stayed till those people were gone (Budgell and 
Philips). We went accordingly ; and after 
dinner Mr. Addison said, « That he had wanted 
for some time to talk with me ; that his friend 
Tickell had formerly, whilst at Oxford, trans- 
lated the first book of the < Iliad ;' that he de- 
signed to print it, and had desired him to look 
it over ; that he must therefore beg that I would 
not desire him to look over my first book, be- 
cause, if he did, it would have the air of double- 
dealing.' I assured him that I did not at all 
take it ill of Mr. Tickell that he was going to 



publish his translation ; that he certainly had as 
much right to translate any author as myself; 
and that publishing both was entering on a fair 
stage. I then added, that I would not desire him 
to look over my first book of the ' Iliad,' because 
he had looked over Mr. Tickell's ; but could 
wish to have the benefit of his observations on the 
second, which I had then finished, and which 
Mr. Tickell had not touched upon. Accordingly 
I sent him the second book the next morning ; 
and Mr. Addison a few days after returned it, 
with very high commendations. Soon after it 
was generally known that Mr. Tickell wa3 
publishing the first book of the ' Iliad,' I met 
Dr. Young in the street ; and, upon our falling 
into that subject, the Doctor expressed a great 
deal of surprise at Tickell's having had such a 
translation so long by him. He said, that it 
was inconceivable to him, and that there must 
be some mistake in the matter ; that each used 
to communicate to the other whatever verses 
they wrote, even to the least things ; that Tickell 
could not have been busied in so long a work 
there without his knowing something of the 
matter ; and that he had never heard a single 
word of it till on this occasion. The surprise 
of Dr. Young, together with what Steele has 
said against Tickell, in relation to this affair, 
make it highly probable that there was some 
underhand dealing in that business ; and indeed 
Tickell himself, who is a very fair worthy man, 
has since in a manner as good as owned it to me. 
When it was introduced into a conversation be- 
tween Mr. Tickell and Mr. Pope, by a third 
person, Tickell did not deny it ; which, con- 
sidering his honour and zeal for his departed 
friend, was the same as owning it." 

Upon these suspicions, with which Dr. War- 
burton hints that other circumstances concurred, 
Pope always in his " Art of Sinking" quotes 
this book as the work of Addison. 

To compare the two translations would be 
tedious ; the palm is now given universally to 
Pope; but I think the first lines of Tickell's 
were rather to be preferred ; and Pope seems to 
have since borrowed something from them in 
the correction of his own. 

When the Hanover succession was disputed, 
Tickell gave what assistance his pen would 
supply. His " Letter to Avignon" stands high 
among party poems ; it expresses contempt with- 
out coarseness, and superiority without inso- 
lence. It had the success which it deserved, 
being five times printed. 

He was now intimately united to Mr. Addi- 
son, who, when he went into Ireland as secre- 
tary to the Lord Sunderland, took him thither 
and employed him in public business ; and 
when (1717) afterwards he rose to be secretary 
of state, made him under secretary. Their 
friendship seems to have continued without 
abatement ; for when Addison died, he left him 



212 



H AMMO N D. 



the charge of publishing his works, with a 
solemn recommendation to the patronage of 
Craggs. 

To these works he prefixed an Elegy on the 
Author, which could owe none of its beauties 
to the assistance which might be suspected to 
have strengthened or embellished his earlier 
compositions ; but neither he nor Addison ever 
produced nobler lines than are contained in the 
third and fourth paragraphs ; nor is a more 
sublime or more elegant funeral-poem to be 
found in the whole compass of English literature. 

He was afterwards (about 1725) made secre- 
tary to the Lords Justices of Ireland, a place of 
great honour ; in which he continued till 1740, 
when he died on the 23d of April, at Bath. 



Of the poems yet unmentioned the longest is 
" Kensington Gardens," of which the versifica- 
tion is smooth and elegant, but the fiction un- 
skilfully compounded of Grecian deities and 
Gothic fairies. Neither species of those ex- 
ploded beings could have done much ; and when 
they are brought together they only make each 
ether contemptible. To Tickell, however, can- 
not be refused a high place among the minor 
poets : nor should it be forgotten that he was 
one of the contributors to the " Spectator." 
With respect to his personal character, he is 
said to have been a man of gay conversation, 
at least a temperate lover of wine and com- 
pany, and in his domestic relations without 
censure. 



HAM M O N D. 



Of Mr. Hammond, though he be well remem- 
bered as a man esteemed and caressed by the 
elegant and the great, I was at first able to ob- 
tain no other memorials than such as are sup- 
plied by a book called " Cibber's Lives of the 
Poets ;" of which I take this opportunity to 
testify, that it was not written, nor, I believe, 
ever seen, by either of the Gibbers : but was the 
work of Robert Shiels, a native of Scotland, a 
man of very acute understanding, though with 
little scholastic education, who, not long after 
the publication of his work, died in London of 
a consumption. His life was virtuous, and his 
end -was pious. Theophilus Cibber, then a 
prisoner for debt, imparted, as I was told, his 
name for ten guineas. The manuscript of 
Shiels is now in my possession. 

I have since found that Mr. Shiels, though 
he was no negligent inquirer, had been misled 
by false accounts ; for he relates that James 
Hammond, the Author of the Elegies, was the 
son of a Tui"key merchant, and had some office 
at the Prince of Wales's court, till love of a 
lady, whose name was Dashwood, for a time 
disordered his understanding. He was un- 
extinguishably amorous, and his mistress inex- 
orably cruel. 

Of this narrative, part is true and part false. 
He was the second son of Anthony Hammond, 
a man of note among the wits, poets, and par- 
liamentary orators, in the beginning of this 
century, who was allied to Sir Robert Wal- 
pole by marrying his sister.* He was born 

• This account is still erroneous. James Hannr.ond, 
our Author, was of a different family, the second 



about 1710, and educated at Westminster school ; 
but it does not appear that he was of any uni- 
versity.* He was equerry to the Prince of 
Wales, and seems to have come very early into 
public notice, and to have been distinguished by 
those whose friendships prejudiced mankind at 
that time in favour of the man on whom they 
were bestowed ; for he was the companion of 
Cobham, Lyttelton, and Chesterfield. He is 
said to have divided his life between pleasure 
and books; in his retirement forgetting the 
town, and in his gayety losing the student. Of 
his literary hours all the effects are here ex- 
hibited, of which the Elegies were written 
very early, and the prologue not long before hu 
death. 

In 1741 j he was chosen into parliament for 
Truro, in Cornwall, probably one of those who 
were elected by the Prince's influence; and 
died next year, in June, at Stowe, the famous 
seat of Lord Cobham. His mistress long out- 
lived him, and in 1779 died unmarried. The 
character which her lover bequeathed her was, 
indeed, not likely to attract courtship. 

The Elegies were published after his death ; 
and while the writer's name was remembered 
with fondness, they were read with a resolution 
to admire them. 

The recommendatory preface of the editor 



son of Anthony Hammond, of Somersham-place, in 
the county of Huntingdon, Esq. See Gent. Mag. 
Vol. Ivii. p. 780.— R. 

* Mr. Cole gives him to Cambridge. MSS. Athe- 
na:- Cantab, in Mus. Brit.— C. 



S O M E R V I L E. 



213 



who was then believed, and is now affirmed, by 
Dr. Maty to be the Earl of Chesterfield, raised 
strong prejudices in their favour. 

But of the prefacer, whoever he was, it may 
be reasonably suspected that he never read the 
poems ; for he professes to value them for a very 
high species of excellence, and recommends 
them as the genuine effusions of the mind, 
which expresses a real passion in the language 
of nature. But the truth is, these Elegies have 
neither passion, nature, nor manners. Where 
there is fiction, there is no passion ; he that de- 
scribes himself as a shepherd, and his Nesera or 
Delia as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and 
lambs, feels no passion. He that courts his 
mistress with Roman imagery deserves to lose 
her : for she may with good reason suspect 
his sincerity. Hammond has few sentiments 
drawn from nature, and few images from 
modern life. He produces nothing but frigid 
pedantry. It would be hard to find in all his 
productions three stanzas that deserve to be re- 
membered. 

Like other lovers, he threatens the lady with 
dying ; and what then shall follow ? 



Wilt thou in tears thy lover's corse attend? 

With eyes averted light the solemn pyre ; 
Till all around the doleful flames ascend, 

Then, slowly sinking, by degrees expire 1 

To soothe the hovering soul be thine the care, 
With plaintive cries to lead the mournful baud ; 

In sable weeds the golden vase to bear, 
And cull my ashes with thy trembling hand. 

Panchaia's odours be their costly feast, 
And all the pride of Asia's fragrant year ; 

Give them the treasures of the farthest east ; 
And, what is still more precious, give thy tear. 

Surely no blame can fall upon a nymph who 
rejected a swain of so little meaning. 

His verses are not rugged, but they have no 
sweetness; they never glide in a stream of 
melody. Why Hammond or other writers have 
thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiac, it 
is difficult to tell. The character of the Elegy 
is gentleness and tenuity ; but this stanza has 
been pronounced by Dryden, whose knowledge 
of English metre was not inconsiderable, to be 
the most magnificent of all the measures which 
our language affords. 



SOMERVILE. 



Of Mr. * Somervile's life I am not able to 
say any thing that can satisfy curiosity. 

He was a gentleman whose estate was in 
Warwickshire : his house, where he was born 
in 1692, is called Edston, a seat inherited from 
a long line of ancestors ; for he was said tb be 
of the first family in his county. He tells of 
himself that he was born near the Avon's banks. 
He was bred at Winchester-school, and was 
elected fellow of New College. It does not ap- 
pear that in the places of his education he ex- 
hibited any uncommon proofs of genius or litera- 
ture. His powers were first displayed in the 
country, where he was distinguished as a poet, 
a gentleman, and a skilful and useful justice of 
the peace. 

Of the close of his life, those whom his poems 
have delighted wDl read with pain the following 
account, copied from the letters of his friend 
Shenstone, by whom he was too much re- 
sembled. 

" — Our old friend Somervile is dead ! I did 
not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find 

* William. 



myself on this occasion. — Sublatum gucerimus. 
I can now excuse all his foibles ; impute them 
to age, and to distress of circumstances ; the last 
of these considerations wrings my very soul to 
think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious 
of having (at least in one production) generally 
pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened 
by wretches that are low in every sense ; to be 
forced to drink himself into pains of the body, 
in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a 
misery." 

He died July 19, 1742, and was buried at 
Wotton, near Henley on Arden. 

His distresses need not be much pitied ; hia 
estate is said to have been fifteen hundred a 
year, which by his death devolved to Lord 
Somervile of Scotland. His mother, indeed, 
who lived till ninety, had a jointure of six 
hundred. 

It is with regret that I find myself not better 
enabled to exhibit memorials of a writer who at 
least must be allowed to have set a good example 
to men of his own class, by devoting part of his 
time to elegant knowledge; and who has shown, 
by the subjects which his poetry has adorned, 
E c 



214 



SAVAGE. 



that it is practicable to be at once a skilful 
sportsman and a man of letters. 

Somervile has tried many modes of poetry ; 
and though perhaps he has not in any reached 
such excellence as to raise much envy, it may 
commonly be said at least, that " he writes very 
well for a gentleman." His serious pieces are 
sometimes elevated, and his trifles are sometimes 
elegant. In his verses to Addison, the couplat 
which mentions Clio is written with the most 
exquisite delicacy of praise ; it exhibits one of 
those happy strokes that is seldom attained. In 
his Odes to Marlborough there are beautiful 
lines ; but in the second ode he shows that he 
knew little of his hero, when he talks of his 
private virtues. His subjects are commonly 
such as require no great depth of thought or 
energy of expression. His Fables are generally 
stale, and therefore excite no curiosity. Of his 
favourite, " The Two Springs," the fiction is 
tinnatural and the moral inconsequential. In 
his Tales there is too much coarseness, with too 
little care of language, and not sufficient rapidi- 
ty of narration. 



His great work is his " Chase," which he 
undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was 
improved to the approbation of blank verse, of 
which however his two first lines gave a bad 
specimen. To this poem praise cannot be totally 
denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write 
with great intelligence of his subject, which is 
the first requisite to excellence ; and though it is 
impossible to interest the common readers of 
verse in the dangers or pleasures of the chase, he 
has done all that transition and variety could 
easily effect ; and has with great propriety en- 
larged his plan by the modes of hunting used in 
other countries. 

With still less judgment did he choose blank 
verse as the vehicle of rural sports. If blank 
verse be not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled 
prose ; and familiar images in laboured lan- 
guage have nothing to recommend them but 
absurd novelty, which, wanting the attrac- 
tions of nature, cannot please long. One ex- 
cellence of " The Splendid Shilling" is, that it 
is short. Disguise can gratify no longer than 
it deceives. 



SAVAGED 



Ir has been observed in all ages, that the advan- 
tages of nature or of fortune have contributed 
very little to the promotion of happiness ; and 
that those whdm the splendour of their rank or 
the extent of their capacity have placet, upon 
the summits of human life, have not often given 
any just occasion to envy in those who look up 
to them from a lower station ; whether it be 
that apparent superiority incites great designs, 
and great designs are naturally liable to fatal 
miscarriages, or that the general lot of mankind 
is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose 
eminence drew upon them an universal atten- 
tion have been more carefully recorded, be- 
cause they were more generally observed, and 
have in reality been only more conspicuous 
than those of others, not more frequent or more 
severe. 

That affluence and power advantages extrinsic 



* The nrst edition of this interesting narrative, 
according to Mr. Boswell, was published in 1744, 
by Roberts. The second, now before me, bears date 
1748, and was published by Cave. Very few altera- 
tions were made by the Author when he added it to 
the present collection.— C. 



and adventitious, and therefore easily separable 
from those by whom they are possessed, should 
very often flatter the mind with expectations of 
felicity which they cannot give, raises no as- 
tonishment ; but it seems rational to hope, that 
intellectual greatness should produce better ef- 
fects ; that minds qualified for great attain- 
ments should first endeavour their own benefit ; 
and that they who are most able to teach others 
the way to happiness, should with most cer- 
tainty follow it themselves. 

But this expectation, however plausible, has 
been very frequently disappointed. The heroes 
of literary as well as civil history have been 
very often no less remarkable for what they have 
suffered, than' for what they have achieved; 
and volumes have been written only to enumerate 
the miseries of the learned, and relate their un- 
happy lives and untimely deaths. 

To these mournful narratives, I am about to 
add the life of Richard Savage, a man whose 
writings entitle him to an eminent rank in the 
classes of learning, and whose misfortunes claim 
a degree of compassion not always due to the 
unhappy, as they were often the consequences 
of the crimes of others, rather than his own. 

In the year 1697, Anne Countess of Macck3- 



., 



SAVAGE. 



215 



field, having lived some time upon very uneasy- 
terms with her husband, thought a public con- 
fession of adultery the most obvious and expedi- 
tious method of obtaining her liberty ; and 
therefore declared, that the child with which 
she was then great was begotten by the Earl 
Rivers. This, as may be imagined, made her 
husband no less desirous of a separation than 
herself, and he prosecuted his design in the most 
effectual manner ; for he applied not to the ec- 
clesiastical courts for a divorce, but to the par- 
liament for an act, by which his marriage 
might be dissolved, the nuptial contract totally 
annulled, and the children of his wife illegiti- 
mated. This act, after the usual deliberation, 
he obtained, though without the approbation of 
some, who considered marriage as an affair only 
cognizable by ecclesiastical judges ;* and on 
March 3d was separated from his wife, whose 
fortune, which was very great, was repaid her, 
and who, having, as well as her husband, the 
liberty of making another choice, was in a short 
time married to Colonel Brett. 

While the Earl of Macclesfield was prosecut- 
ing this affair, his wife was, on the 10th of 
January, 1G97-8, delivered of a son; and the 
Earl Rivers, by appearing to consider him as 
his own, left none any reason to doubt of the sin- 
cerity of her declaration ; for he was his god- 
father, and gave him his own name, which was 
by his direction inserted in the register of St. 
Andrew's parish, in Holborn, but unfortunate- 
ly left him to the care of his mother, whom, as 
she was now set free from her husband, he 
probably imagined likely to treat with great 
tenderness the child that had contributed to so 
pleasing an event. It is not indeed easy to dis- 
cover what motives could be found to over- 
balance that natural affection of a parent, or 
what interest could be promoted by neglect or 
cruelty. The dread of shame or of poverty, by 
which some wretches have been incited to aban- 
don or to murder their children, cannot be sup- 
posed to have affected a woman who had pro- 
claimed her crimes and solicited reproach, and 
on whom the clemency of the legislature had 
undeservedly bestowed a fortune, which would 
have been very little diminished by the expenses 
which the care of her child could have brought 



* Tbis year was mads remarkable by the dissolu- 
tion of a marriage solemnized in the face of the 
church. — Salmon's Review. 

The following protest is registered in the books of 
the House of Lords. 
Dissentient, 

Because we conceive that this is the first bill of 
that nature that hath passed, where there was not 
a divorce first obtained in the Spiritual Court ; 
which we look upon as an ill precedent, and may be 
of dangerous consequences in the future. 

Halifax. Rochester. 



upon her. It was therefore not likely that she 
would be wicked without temptation ; that she 
would look upon her son from his birth with 
a kind of resentment and abhorrence ; and, in- 
stead of supporting, assisting, and defending 
him, delight to see him struggling with misery, 
or that she would take every opportunity of ag- 
gravating his misfortunes, and obstructing his 
resources, and with an implacable and restless 
cruelty continue her persecution from the first 
hour of his life to the last. 

But whatever were her motives, no sooner 
was her son born, than she discovered a resolu- 
tion of disowning him ; and in a very short 
time removed him from her sight, by commit- 
ting him to the care of a poor woman, whom 
she directed to educate him as her own, 
and enjoined never to inform him of his true 
parents. 

Such was the beginning of the life of Richard 
Savage. Born with a legal claim to honour 
and to affluence, he was in two months illegiti- 
mated by the parliament, and disowned by his 
mother, doomed to poverty and obscurity, and 
launched upon the ocean of life, only that he 
might be swallowed by its quicksands, or dashed 
upon its rocks. 

His mother could not indeed infect others 
with the same cruelty. As it was impossible to 
avoid the inquiries which the curiosity or ten- 
derness of her relations made after her child, 
she was obliged to give some account of the 
measures she had taken ; and her mother, the 
Lady Mason, whether in approbation of her 
design, or to prevent more criminal contri- 
vances, engaged to transact with the nurse, to 
pay her for her care, and to superintend the 
education of the child. 

In this charitable office she was assisted by 
his godmother, Mrs. Lloyd, who, while she 
lived, always looked upon him with that ten- 
derness which the barbarity of his mother- made 
peculiarly necessary ; but her death, which hap- 
pened in his tenth year, was another of the 
misfortunes of his childhood ; for though she 
kindly endeavoured to alleviate his loss by a 
legacy of three hundred pounds, yet, as he had 
none to prosecute his claim, to shelter him from 
oppression, or call in law to the assistance of 
justice, her will was eluded by the executors, 
and no part of the money was ever paid. 

He was, however, not yet wholly abandoned. 
The Lady Mason still continued her care, and 
directed him to be placed at a small grammar- 
school near St. Alban's, where he was called by 
the name of his nurse, without the least intima- 
tion that he had a claim to any other. 

Here he was initiated in literature, and passed 
through several of the classes, with what rapidity 
or with what applause cannot now be known. 
As he always spoke with respect of his master, 
it is probable that the mean rank in which he 



216 



SAVAGE. 



then appeared did not hinder his genius from 
being distinguished, or his industry from being 
rewarded ; and if in so low a state he obtained 
distinction and rewards, it is not likely that 
they were gained but by genius and industry. 

It is very reasonable to conjecture, that his 
application was equal to his abilities, because 
his improvement was more than proportioned 
to the opportunities which he enjoyed ; nor can 
it be doubted, that if his eaiiiest productions 
had been preserved, like those of happier stu- 
dents, we might in some have found vigorous 
6allies of that sprightly humour which distin- 
guishes " The Author to be let," and in others 
strong touches of that ardent imagination 
which painted the solemn scenes of " The Wan- 
derer." 

While he was thus cultivating his genius, his 
father the Earl Rivers was seized with a dis- 
temper, which in a short time put an end to 
his life.* He had frequently inquired after his 
son, and had always been amused with falla- 
cious and evasive answers ; but, being now in 
his own opinion on his deathbed, he thought 
it his duty to provide for him among his other 
natural children, and therefore demanded a 
positive account of him, with an importunity 
not to be diverted or denied. His mother, who 
could no longer refuse an answer, determined 
at least to give such as should cut him off for ever 
from that happiness which competence affords, 
and therefore declared that he was dead ; which 
is perhaps the first instance of a lie invented by a 
mother to deprive her son of a provision which 
was designed him by another, and which she 
could not expect herself, though he should lose it. 

This was therefore an act of wickedness 
which could not be defeated, because it could not 
be suspected ; the Earl did not imagine there 
could exist in a human form a mother that 
would ruin her son without enriching herself, 
and therefore bestowed upon some other person 
six thousand pounds, which he had in his will 
bequeathed to Savage. 

The same cruelty which incited his mother 
to intercept this provision which had been in- 
tended him, prompted her in a short time to 
another project, a project worthy of such a dis- 
position. She endeavoured to rid herself from 
the dangers of being at any time made known 
to him, by sending him secretly to the American 
plantations.f 

By whose kindness this scheme was counter- 
acted, or by whose interposition she was in- 
duced to lay aside her design, I know not : it is 
not improbable that the Lady Mason might 
persuade or compel her to desist, or per- 
haps she could not easily find accomplices 
wicked enough to concur in so cruel an action ; 



• He died August 18th, 1712.— R. 

f Savage's Preface to Lis Miscellanies. 



for it may be conceived, that those who had by 
a long gradation of guilt hardened their hearts 
against the sense of common wickedness, would 
yet be shocked at the design of a mother to ex- 
pose her son to slavery and want, to expose him 
without interest, and without provocation ; and 
Savage might on this occasion find protectors 
and advocates among those who had long traded 
in crimes, and whom compassion had never 
touched before. 

Being hindered, by whatever means, from 
banishing him into another country, she formed 
soon after a scheme for burying him in poverty 
and obscurity in his own ; and that his station 
of life, if not the place of his residence, might 
keep him for ever at a distance from her, she 
ordered him to be placed with a shoemaker in 
Holborn, that, after the usual time of trial, he 
might become his apprentice.* 

It is generally reported, that this project was 
for some time successful, and that Savage was 
employed at the awl longer than he was willing 
to confess ; nor was it perhaps any great advan- 
tage to him that an unexpected discovery de- 
termined him to quit his occupation. 

About this time his nurse, who had always 
treated him as her own son, died ; and it was 
natural for him to take care of those effects 
which by her death were, as he imagined, be- 
come his own ; he therefore went to her house, 
opened her boxes, and examined her papers, 
among which he found some letters written to 
her by the Lady Mason, which infoimed him 
of his birth, and the reasons for which it was 
concealed. 

He was no longer satisfied with the employ- 
ment which had been allotted him, *ut thought 
he had a right to share the affluence of his 
mother ; and therefore without scruple applied 
to her as her son, and made use of every art to 
awaken her tenderness, and attract her regard. 
But neither his letters 5 nor the interposition of 
those friends which his merit or his distress 
procured him, made any impression upon her 
mind. She still resolved to neglect, though she 
could no longer disown him. 

It was to no purpose that he frequently soli- 
cited her to admit him to see her ; she avoided 
him with the most vigilant precaution, and or- 
dered him to be excluded from her house, by 
whomsoever he might be introduced, and what 
reason soever he might give for entering it. 

Savage was at the same time so touched with 
the discovery of his real mother, that it was his 
frequent practice to walk in the dark eveningsf 
for several hours before her door, in hopes of 
seeing her as she might come by accident to the 
window, or cross her apartment with a candle 
in her hand. 



* Savage's Preface to his Miscellanies. 
t &ue the " Plain Dealer." 



SAVAGE. 



217 



But all his assiduity and tenderness were 
without effect, for he could neither soften her 
heart nor open her hand, and was reduced to 
the utmost miseries of want, while he was en- 
deavouring to awaken the affection of a mother. 
He was therefore obliged to seek some other 
means of support: and, having no profession, 
became by necessity an author. 

At this time the attention of all the literary 
world was engrossed by the Bangorian contro- 
versy which filled the press with pamphlets, 
and the coffee-houses with disputants. Of this 
subject, as most popular, he made choice for his 
first attempt, and without any other knowledge 
of the question than he had casually collected 
from conversation, published a poem against the 
Bishop. * 

What was the success or merit of this per- 
formance I know not, it was probably lost 
among the innumerable pamphlets to which 
that dispute gave occasion. Mr. Savage was 
himself in a little time ashamed of it, and en- 
deavoured to suppress it, by destroying all the 
copies that he could collect. 

He then attempted a more gainful kind of 
writing>f and in his eighteenth year offered to 
the stage a comedy borrowed from a Spanish 
plot, which was refused by the players, and was 
therefore given by him to Mr. Bullock, who, 
having more interest, made some slight altera- 
tions, and brought it upon the stage, under the 
title of " Woman's a Riddle,"! but allowed 
the unhappy Author no part of the profit. 

Not discouraged however at his repulse, he 
wrote two years afterwards " Love in a Veil," 
another comedy, borrowed likewise from the 
Spanish, but with little better success than be- 
fore; for though it was received and acted, 
yet it appeared so late in the year, that the 
Author obtained no other advantage from it, 
thau the acquaintance of Sir Richard Steele 
and Mr. Wilks, by whom he was pitied, ca- 
ressed, and relieved. 

Sir Richard Steele, having declared in his fa- 
vour with all the ardour of benevolence which 
constituted his character, promoted his interest 
with the utmost zeal, related his misfortunes, 
applauded his merit, took all the opportunities 
of recommending him, and asserted, that " the 
inhumanity of his mother, had given him a 
right to find every good man his father. "§ 

Nor was Mr. Savage admitted to his ac- 
quaintance only, but to his confidence, of which 
he sometimes related an instance too extraor- 
dinary to be omitted, as it affords a very just 
j&ea of his patron's character. 

* It was called " The Battle of the Pamphlets." 
f Jacob's Lives of the Dramatic Poets. — Dr. J. 
$ This play was printed first in 8vo.; and after- 
wards in 12mo. the fifth edition.— Dr. J. 
§ " Plain Dealer."— Dr. J. 



He was once desired by Sir Richard, with an 
air of the utmost importance, to come very 
early to his house the next morning. Mr. Sa- 
vage came as he had promised, found the cha- 
riot at the door, and Sir Richard waiting for 
him, and ready to go out- What was intended, 
and whither they were to go, Savage could not 
conjecture, and was not willing to inquire ; but 
immediately seated himself with Sir Richard. 
The coachman was ordered to drive, and they 
hurried with the utmost expedition to Hyde- 
Park Corner, where they stopped at a petty 
tavern, and retired to a private room. Sir 
Richard then informed him, that he intended 
to publish a pamphlet, and that he had desired 
him to come thither that he might write for 
him. They soon sat down to the work. Sir 
Richard dictated, and Savage wrote, till the 
dinner that was ordered was put upon the 
table. Savage was surprised at the meanness 
of the entertainment, and after some hesitation 
ventured to ask for some wine, which Sir Rich- 
ard, not without reluctance, ordered to be 
brought. They then finished their dinner, and 
proceeded in their pamphlet, which they con- 
cluded in the afternoon. 

Mr. Savage then imagined his task was over, 
and expected that Sir Richard would call for 
the reckoning, and return home ; but his ex- 
pectations deceived him, for Sir Richard told 
him that he was without money, and that the 
pamphlet must be sold before the dinner could 
be paid for ; and Savage was therefore obliged 
to go and offer their new production for sale for 
two guineas, which with some difficulty he ob- 
tained. Sir Richard then returned home, hav- 
ing retired that day only to avoid his creditors, 
and composed the pamphlet only to discharge 
his reckoning. 

Mr. Savage related another fact equally un- 
common, which, though it has no relation to 
his life, ought to be preserved. Sir Richard 
Steele having one day invited to his house a 
great number of persons of the first quality, 
they were surprised at the number of liveries 
which surrounded the table ; and, after dinner, 
when wine and mirth had set them free from 
the observation of rigid ceremony, on$ of them 
inquired of Sir Richard, how such an expen- 
sive train of domestics could be consistent with 
his fortune. Sir Richard very frankly con- 
fessed, that they were fellows of whom he 
would very willingly be rid : and being then 
asked why he did not discharge them, declared 
that they were bailiffs, who had introduced 
themselves with an execution, and whom, since 
he could not send them away, he had thought 
it convenient to embellish with liveries, that 
they might do him credit while they stayed. 

His friends were diverted with the expedient, 
and by paying the debt discharged their attend- 
ance, having obliged Sir Richard to prorrusa 



218 



SAVAGE. 



that they should never again find him graced 
with a retinue of the same kind. 

Under such a tutor Mr. Savage was not likely 
to learn prudence or frugality ; and perhaps 
many of the misfortunes which the want of 
those virtues hrought upon him in the following 
parts of his life, might he justly imputed to so 
unimproving an example. 

Nor did the kindness of Sir Richard end in 
common favours. He proposed to have estab- 
lished him in some settled scheme of life, and 
to have contracted a kind of alliance with him, 
by marrying him to a natural daughter on 
whom he intended to bestow a thousand pounds. 
But, though he was always lavish of future 
bounties, he conducted his affairs in such a 
manner, that he was very seldom able to keep 
his promises, or execute his own intentions; 
and, as he never was able to raise the sum 
which he had offered, the marriage was delayed. 
In the mean time he was officiously informed, 
that Mr. Savage had ridiculed him ; by which 
he was so much exasperated, that he withdrew 
the allowance which he had paid him, and never 
afterwards admitted him to his house. 

It is not indeed unlikely that Savage might 
by his imprudence expose himself to the malice 
of a talebearer ; for his patron had many follies, 
which, as his discernment easily discovered, his 
imagination might sometimes incite him to 
mention too ludicrously. A little knowledge 
of the world is sufficient to discover that such 
weakness is very common, and that there are 
few who do not sometimes, in the wantonness 
of thoughtless mirth, or the heat of transient 
resentment, speak of their friends and benefac- 
tors with levity and contempt, though in their 
cooler moments they want neither sense of their 
kindness, nor reverence for their virtue : the 
fault therefore of Mr. Savage was rather negli- 
gence than ingratitude. But Sir Richard must 
likewise be acquitted of severity, for who is 
there that can patiently bear contempt, from 
one whom he has relieved and supported, whose 
establishment he has laboured, and whose in- 
terest he has promoted ? 

He was now again abandoned to fortune 
without any other friend than Mr. Wilks; a 
man, who, whatever were his abilities or skill 
as an actor, deserves at least to be remembered 
for his virtues,* which are not often to be found 

* As it is a loss to mankind when any good action 
is forgotten, I shall insert another instance of Mr. 
Wilks's generosity, very little known. Mr. Smith, 
a gentleman educated at Dublin, being hindered, by 
an impediment in his pronunciation, from engaging 
in orders, for which his friends designed him, left 
his own country, and came to London in quest of 
employment, but found his solicitations fruitless, 
and his necessities every day more pressing. In 
this distress he wrote a tragedy, and offered it to the 
players, by whom it was rejected. Thus were his 



in the world, and perhaps less often in his pro- 
fession than in others. To be humane, gener- 
ous, and candid, is a very high degree of merit 
in any case, but those qualities deserve still 
greater praise, when they are found in that 
condition which makes almost every other man, 
for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, 
petulant, selfish, and brutal. 

As Mr. Wilks was one of those to whom ca- 
lamity seldom complained without relief, he 
naturally took an unfortunate wit into his pro- 
tection, and not only assisted him in any casual 
distresses, but continued an equal and steady 
kindness to the time of his death. 

By his interposition Mr. Savage once obtained 
from his mother* fifty pounds, and a promise 
of one hundred and fifty more ; but it was the 
fate of this unhappy man, that few promises 
of any advantage to him were performed. His 
mother was infected, among others, with the 
general madness of the South Sea traffic ; and, 
having been disappointed in her expectations, 
refused to pay what perhaps nothing but the 
prospect of sudden affluence prompted her to 
promise. 

Being thus obliged to depend upon the friend- 
ship of Mr. Wilks, he was consequently an as- 
siduous frequenter of the theatres ; and in a 
short time the amusements of the stage took 
such possession of his mind, that he never was 
absent from a play in several years. 

This constant attendance naturally procured 
him the acquaintance of the players, and, 
among others, of Mrs. Oldfield, who was so 
much pleased with his conversation, and touch- 
ed with his misfortunes, that she allowed him a 
settled pension of fifty pounds a year, which 
was during her life regularly paid. 



last hopes defeated, and he had no other prospect 
than of the most deplorable poverty. But Mr. 
Wilks thought his performance, though not perfect, 
at least worthy of some reward, and therefore of- 
fered him a benefit. This favour he improved with 
so much diligence, that the house afforded him a 
considerable sum, with which he went to Leyden, 
applied himself to the study of physic, and prose- 
cuted his design with so much diligence and success, 
that, when Dr. Boerhaave was desired by the Czar 
ina to recommend proper persons to introduce into 
Russia the practice and study of physic, Dr. Smith 
was one of those whom he selected. He had a 
considerable pension settled on him at his arrival, 
and was one of the chief physicians at the Russian 
court— Dr. J. 

A letter from Dr. Smith in Russia, to Mr. Wilks, 
is printed in Chetwood's " History of the Stage." 
— R. 

* " This," says Dr. Johnson, " I write upon the 
rredit of the author of his life, which was published 
in 1727 ; and was a small pamphlet, intended to 
plead his cause with the public while under sentence 
of death for the murder of Mr. James Sinclair, at 
Robinson's Coffee-house, at Charing Cross. Price 
6d. Roberts."— C. 



SAVAGE. 



219 



That this act of generosity may receive its 
due praise, and that the good actions of Mrs. 
Oldfield may not be sullied by her general 
character, it is proper to mention what Mr. 
Savage often declared, in the strongest terms, 
that he never saw her alone, or in any other 
place than behind the scenes. 

At her death he endeavoured to show his 
gratitude in the most decent manner, by wear- 
ing mourning as for a mother ; but did not ce- 
lebrate her in elegies,* because he knew that 
too great a profusion of praise would only have 
revived those faults which his natural equity 
did not allow him to think less, because they 
were committed by one who favoured him : but 
of which, though his virtue would not endea- 
vour to palliate them, his gratitude would not 
suffer him to prolong the memory or diffuse the 
censure. 

In his " Wanderer" he has indeed taken an 
opportunity of mentioning her ; but celebrates 
her not for her virtue, but her beauty, an ex- 
cellence which none ever denied her ; this is the 
only encomium with which he has rewarded 
her liberality, and perhaps he has even in this 
been too lavish of his praise. He seems to 
have thought, that never to mention his bene- 
factress would have an appearance of ingrati- 
tude, though to have dedicated any particular 
performance to her memory would only have 
betrayed an officious partiality, that, without 
exalting her character, would have depressed 
his own. 

He had sometimes, by the kindness of Mr. 
Wilks, the advantage of a benefit, on which 
occasions he often received uncommon marks 
of regard and compassion ; and was once told 
by the Duke of Dorset, that it was just to con- 
sider him as an injured nobleman, and that in 
his opinion the nobility ought to think them- 
selves obliged, without solicitation, to take every 
opportunity of supporting him by their cdun- 
tenance and patronage. But he had generally 
the mortification to hear that the whole interest 
of his mother was employed to frustrate his 
applications, and that she never left any ex- 
pedient untried by which he might be cut off 
from the possibility of supporting life. The 
same disposition she endeavoured to diffuse 
among all those over whom nature or fortune 
gave her any influence, and indeed succeeded 
too well in her design: but could not always 
propagate her effrontery with her cruelty ; for, 
some of those, whom she incited against him, 
were ashamed of their own conduct, and boast- ! 
ed of that relief which they never gave "him. 

In this censure I do not indiscriminately in- ; 
volve all his relations ; for he has mentioned 

* Chctwood, however, has printed a poem on her 
death, which he ascribes to Mr. Savage. See " His- 
tory of the Stage/' p. 200.— R. 



with gratitude the humanity of one lady, whose 
name I am now unable to recollect, and to 
whom therefore I cannot pay the praises which 
she deserves for having acted well in opposition 
to influence, precept, and example. 

The punishment which our laws inflict upon 
those parents who murder their infants is well 
known, nor has its justice ever been contested ; 
but, if they deserve death who destroy a child 
in its birth, what pains can be severe enough 
for her who forbears to destroy him only to in- 
flict sharper miseries upon him ; who prolongs 
his life only to make him miserable ; and who 
exposes him, without care and without pity, to 
the malice of oppression, the caprices of chance, 
and the temptations of poverty ; who rejoices 
to see him overwhelmed with calamities ; and 
when his own industry or the charity of others 
has enabled him to rise for a short time above 
his miseries, plunges him again into his former 
distress ! 

The kindness of his friends not affording him 
any constant supply, and the prospect of im- 
proving his fortune by enlarging his acquaint- 
ance necessarily leading him to places of ex- 
pense, he found it necessary* to endeavour 
once more at dramatic poetry, for which he was 
now better qualified by a more extensive know- 
ledge, and longer observation. But having 
been unsuccessful in comedy, though rather for 
want of opportunities than genius, he resolved 
now to try whether he should not be more for- 
tunate in exhibiting a tragedy. 

The story which he chose for the subject, was 
that of Sir Thomas Overbury, a story well 
adapted to the stage, though perhaps not far 
enough removed from the present age to admit 
properly the fictions necessary to complete the 
plan ; for the mind, which naturally loves truth, 
is always most offended with the violations of 
those truths of which we are most certain ; and 
we of course conceive those facts most certain, 
which approach nearest to our own time. 

Out of this story he formed a tragedy, which, 
if the circumstances in ■which he wrote it be 
considered, will afford at once an uncommon 
proof of strength of genius, and evenness of 
mind, of a serenity not to be ruffled, and ail 
imagination not to be suppressed. 

During a considerable part of the time in 
which he was employed upon this performance, 
he was without lodging, and often without 
meat ; nor had he any other conveniences for 
study than the fields or the streets allowed him ; 
there he used to walk and form his speeches, 
and afterwards step into a shop, beg for a few 
moments the use of the pen and ink, and write 
down what he had composed upon paper which 
he had picked up by accident. 

* In 1724. 



220 



SAVAGE. 



If the performance of a writer thus distressed 
Is not perfect, its faults ought surely to be im- 
puted to a cause very different from want of 
genius, and must rather excite pity than pro- 
voke censure. 

But when under these discouragements the 
tragedy was finished, there yet remained the 
labour of introducing it on the stage, an under- 
taking, which, to an ingenuous mind, was in a 
very high degree vexatious and disgusting; for, 
having little interest or reputation, he was J 
obliged to submit himself wholly to the players, 
and admit, with whatever reluctance, the emen- 
dations of Mr. Cibber, which he always con- 
sidered as the disgrace of his performance. 

He had indeed in Mr. Hill another critic of 
a very different class, from whose friendship he 
received great assistance on many occasions, and 
whom he never mentioned but with the utmost 
tenderness and regard. He had been for some 
time distinguished by him with very particular 
kindness, and on this occasion it was natural to 
apply to him as an author of an established 
character. He therefore sent this tragedy to 
him, with a short copy of verses,* in which he 
desired his correction. Mr. Hill, whose hu- 
manity and politeness are generally known, 
readily complied with his request : but as he is 
remarkable for singularity of sentiment and 
bold experiments in language, Mr. Savage did 
not think his play much improved by his inno- 
vation, and had even at that time the courage 
to reject several passages which he could not 
approve ; and, what is still more laudable, Mr. ; 
Hill had the generosity not to resent the neglect 
of his alterations, but wrote the prologue and ! 
epilogue, in which he touches on the circum- 
stances of the author with great tenderness. 

After all these obstructions and compliances, 
he was only able to bring his play upon the 
stage in the summer when the chief actors had ' 
retired, and the rest were in possession of the 
house for their own advantage. Among these, 
Mr. Savage was admitted to play the part of 
Sir Thomas Overbury,f by which he gained 
no great reputation, the theatre being a province 
for which nature seems not to have designed 
him ; for neither his voice, look, nor gesture, 
was such as was expected on the stage ; and he 
was so much ashamed of having been reduced 
to appear as a player, that he always blotted out 
his name from the list, when a copy of his tra- 
gedy was to be shown to his friends. 

In the publication of his performance he was 
more successful ; for the rays of genius that 
glimmered in it, that glimmered through all 

* Printed in the late collection of his poems. 

t It was acted only three nights, the first on June 
12, 1723. When the house opened for the -winter 
aeason it was once more performed for the Author's 
benefit, Oct. 2.— R. 



the mists which poverty and Cibber had been 
able to spread over it, procured him the notice 
and esteem of many persons eminent for their 
rank, their virtue, and their wit. 

Of this play, acted, printed, and dedicated, 
the accumulated profits arose to a hundred 
pounds, which he thought at that time a very 
large sum, having never been master of so much 
before. 

In the dedication,* for which he received ten 
guineas, there is nothing remarkable. The pre- 
face contains a A T ery liberal encomium on the 
blooming excellences of Mr. Theophilus Cibber, 
which Mr. Savage could not in the latter part 
of his life see his friends about to read without 
snatching the play out of their hands. The 
generosity of Mr. Hill did not end on this oc- 
casion ; for afterwards, when Mr. Savage's ne- 
cessities returned, he encouraged a subscription 
to a miscellany of poems in a very extraordin- 
ary manner, by publishing his story in " The 
Plain Dealer," with some affecting lines, which 
he asserts to have been written by Mr. Savage 
upon the treatment received by him from his 
mother, but of which he was himself the au- 
thor, as Mr. Savage afterwards declared. These 
line3, and the paperf in which they were in- 
serted, had a very powerful effect upon all but 
his mother, whom, by making her cruelty more 
public, they only hardened in her aversion. 

Mr. Hill not only promoted the subscription 
to the Miscellany, but furnished likewise the 
greatest part of the poems of which it is com- 
posed, and particularly " The Happy Man," 
which he published as a specimen. 

The subscriptions of those whom these papers 
should influence to patronise merit in distress, 
without any other solicitation, were directed to 
be left at Button's coffee-house; and Mr. Sa- 
vage going thither a few days afterwards, with- 
out expectation of any effect from his proposal, 
found to his surprise seventy guineas, | which 
had been sent him in consequence of the com- 



* To Herbert Tryst, Esq. of Herefordshire. — 
Dr. J. 

t " The Plain Dealer" was a periodical paper_ 
written by Mr. Hill and Mr. Bond, whom Savage 
called the two contending powers of light and dark 
ness. They wrote by turns each six essays ; and 
the character of the work was observed regularly 
to rise in Mr. Hill's week, and fall in Mr. Eond's. 
—Dr. J. 

J The names of those who so generously contri- 
buted to his relief, having been mentioned in a 
former account, ought not to be omitted here. They 
were the Dutchess of Cleveland, Lady Cheyney, 
Lady Castlemain, Lady Gower, Lady Lechmere, the 
Dutchess Dowager and Dutchess of Rutland, Lady 
Strafford, the Countess Dowager of Warwick, Mrs. 
Mary Flower, Mrs. Sofuel Noel, Duke of Rutland, 
Lord Gainsborough, Lord Mislington, Mr. John Sa- 
vage.— Dr. J. 



SAVAGE. 



221 



passion excited by Mr. Hill's pathetic repre- 
sentation. 

To this Miscellany he wrote a preface, in 
which he gives an account of his mother's 
cruelty in a very uncommon strain of humour, 
and with a gayety of imagination, which the 
success of his subscription probably produced. 

The dedication is addressed to the Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu, whom he natters without 
reserve, and to confess the truth, with very 
little- art.* The same observation maybe ex- 
tended to all his dedications ; his compliments 
are constrained and violent, heaped together 
without the grace of order, or the decency of 
introduction ; he seems to have written his 
panegyrics for the perusal only of his patrons, 
and to imagine that he had no other task than 
to pamper them with praises however gross, 
and that flattery would make its way to the 
heart, without the assistance of elegance or in- 
vention. 

Soon afterwards the death of the King fur- 
nished a general subject for a poetical contest, 
in which Mr. Savage engaged, and is allowed 
to have carried the prize of honour from his 
competitors ; but I know not whether he gained 
by his performance any other advantage than 
the increase of his reputation; though it must 
certainly have been with further views that he 
prevailed upon himself to attempt a species of 
writing, of which all the topics had been long 
before exhausted, and which was made at once 
difficult by the multitudes that had failed in it, 
and those that had succeeded. 

He was now advancing in reputation, and 
though frequently involved in very distressful 
perplexities, appeared however to be gaining 
upon mankind, when both his fame and his life 
were endangered by an event, of which it is not 
yet determined whether it ought to be men- 
tioned as a crime or a calamity. » 

On the 20th of November, 1727, Mr. Savage 
came from Richmond, where he then lodged, 



• This the following extract from it will prove : 
— " Since our country has been honoured with the 
glory of your wit, as elevated and immortal as your 
Boul, it no longer remains a doubt whether your sex 
have a strength of mind in proportion to their sweet- 
ness. There is something in your verses as distin- 
guished as your air. — They are as strong as truth, as 
deep as reason, as clear as innocence, and as 
smooth as beauty. — They contain a nameless and 
peculiar mixture of force and grace, which is at once 
so movingly serene, and so majestically lovely, that 
it is too amiable to appear any where but in your 
eyes and in your writings. 

" As fortune is not more my enemy than I am the 
enemy of flattery, I know not how I can forbear 
this application to your ladyship, because there is 
scarce a possibility that I should say more than I be- 
lieve, when I am speaking of your excellence." 
—Jir. J. 



that he might pursue his studies with less in- 
terruption, with an intent to discharge another 
lodging which he had in Westminster ; and ac- 
cidentally meeting two gentlemen his acquaint- 
ances, whose names were Merchant and Gre- 
gory, he went in with them to a neighbouring- 
coffee-house, and sat drinking till it was late, 
it being in no time of Mr. Savage's life any 
part of his character to be the first of the com- 
pany that desired to separate. He would will- 
ingly have gone to bed in the same house ; but 
there was not room for the whole company, and 
therefore they agreed to ramble about the sti'eets 
and divert themselves with such amusements 
as should offer, themselves till morning. 

In this walk they happened unluckily to dis- 
cover a light in Robinson's coffee-house^ near 
Charing Cross, and therefore went in. Mer- 
chant with some rudeness demanded a room, 
and was told that there was a good fire in the 
next parlour, which the company were about to 
leave, being then paying their reckoning. Mer- 
chant, not satisfied with this answer, rushed 
into the room, and was followed by his com- 
panions. He then petulantly placed himself 
between the company and the fire, and soon 
after kicked down the table. This produced a 
quarrel, swords were drawn on both sides, and 
one Mr. James Sinclair was killed. Savage, 
having wounded likewise a maid that held him, 
forced his way with Merchant out of the 
house; but being intimidated and confused, 
without resolution either to fly or stay, they 
were taken in a back court by one of the com- 
pany, and some soldiers, whom he had called to 
his assistance. 

Being secured and guarded that night, they 
were in the morning carried before three jus- 
tices, who committed them to the gatehouse, 
from whence, upon the death of Mr. Sinclair, 
which happened the same day, they were re- 
moved in the night to Newgate, where they 
were however treated with some distinction, 
exempted from the ignominy of chains, and 
confined, not among the common criminals, but 
in the press-yard. 

When the day of trial came, the court was 
crowded in a very unusual manner; and the 
public appeared to interest itself as in a cause 
of general concern. The witnesses against Mr. 
Savage and his friends were, the woman who 
kept the house, which was a house of ill fame, 
and her maid, the men who were in the room 
with Mr. Sinclair, and a woman of the town, 
who had been drinking with them, and with 
whom one of them had been seen in bed. They 
swore in general, that Merchant gave the pro- 
vocation, which Savage and Gregory drew their 
swords to justify ; that Savage drew first, and 
that he stabbed Sinclair when he was not' in a 
posture of defence, or while Gregory command- 
ed his sword ; that after he had given the 
Ff 



222 



SAVAGE. 



thrust he turned pale, and would have retired, 
hut that the maid clung round him, and one of 
the company endeavoured to detain him, from 
whom he broke by cutting the maid on the 
head, but was afterwards taken in a court. 

There was some difference in their deposi- 
tions ; one did not see Savage give the wound, 
another saw it given when Sinclair held his 
point towards the ground; and the woman of 
the town asserted, that she did not see Sinclair's 
sword at all : this difference however was very 
far from amounting to inconsistency; but it 
was sufficient to show, that the hurry of the 
dispute was such, that it was not easy to dis- 
cover the truth with relation to particular cir- 
cumstances, and that therefore some deductions 
were to be made from the credibility of the 
testimonies. 

Sinclair had declared several times before his 
death, that he received his wound from Savage: 
nor did Savage at his trial deny the fact, but 
endeavoured partly to extenuate it, by urging 
the suddenness of the whole action, and the im- 
possibility of any ill design, or premeditated 
malice ; and partly to justify it by the necessity 
of self-defen6e, and the hazard of his own life, 
if he had lost that opportunity of giving the 
thrust: he observed, that neither reason nor 
law obliged a man to wait for the blow winch 
was threatened, and which, if he should suffer 
it, he might never be able to return; that it 
was always allowable to prevent an assault, and 
to preserve life by taking away that of the ad- 
versary by whom it was endangered. 

With regard to the violence with which he 
endeavoured to escape, he declared, that it was 
not his design to fly from justice, or decline a 
trial, but to avoid the expenses and severities of 
a prison ; and that he intended to have appeared 
at the bar without compulsion. 

This defence, which took up more than an 
hour, was heard by the multitude that thronged 
the court with the most attentive and respectful 
silence ; those who thought he ought not to be 
acquitted, owned that applause could not be re- 
fused him ; and those who before pitied his 
misfortunes, now reverenced his abilities. 

The witnesses which appeared against him 
were proved to be persons of characters which 
did not entitle them to much credit ; a common 
strumpet, a woman by whom strumpets were 
entertained, and a man by whom they were 
supported ; and the character of Savage was by 
several persons of distinction asserted to be that 
of a modest inoffensive man, not inclined to 
broils or to insolence, and who had to that 
time been only known for his misfortunes and 
his wit. 

Had his audience been his judges, he had un- 
doubtedly been acquitted ; but Mr. Page, who 
was then upon the bench, treated him with his 
usual insolence and severity, and when he had 



summed up the evidence, endeavoured to exns* 
perate the jury, as Mr. Savage used to relate it, 
with this eloquent harangue. 

" Gentlemen of the jury, you are to consider 
that Mr. Savage is a very great man, a much 
greater mam than you or I, gentlemen of the 
jury ; that he wears very fine clothes, much 
finer clothes than you or I, gentlemen of the 
jury; that he has abundance of money in his 
pocket, much more money than you or I, gen- 
tlemen of the jury ; but, gentlemen of the jury, 
is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the jury, 
that Mr. Savage should therefore kill you or 
me, gentlemen of the jury?" 

Mr. Savage, hearing his defence thus misre- 
presented, and the men who were to decide his 
fate incited against him by invidious compari- 
sons, resolutely asserted, that his case was not 
candidly explained, and began to recapitulate 
what he had before said with regard to his con- 
dition, and the necessity of endeavouring to es- 
cape the expenses of imprisonment; but the 
judge having ordered him to be silent, and re- 
peated his orders without effect, commanded 
that he should be taken from the bar by force. 

The jury then heard the opinion of the judge, 
that good characters were of no weight against 
positive evidence, though they might turn the 
scale where it was doubtful : and that though, 
when two men attack each other, the death of 
either is only manslaughter ; but where one is 
the aggressor, as in the case before them, and, 
in pursuance of his first attack, kills the other, the 
law supposes the action, however sudden, to be 
malicious. They then deliberated upon their 
verdict, and determined that Mr. Savage and 
Mr. Gregory were guilty of murder ; and Mr. 
Merchant, who had no sword, only of man- 
slaughter. 

Thus ended this memorable trial, which last- 
ed eight hours. Mr. Savage and Mr. Gregory 
were conducted back to prison, where they 
were more closely confined, and loaded with 
irons of fifty pounds weight : four days after- 
wards they were sent back to the court to re- 
ceive sentence ; on which occasion Mr. Savage 
made, as far as it could be retained in memory, 
the following speech: 

"It is now, my Lord, too late to offer any 
thing by way of defence or vindication ; nor 
can we expect from your lordships, in this 
court, but the sentence which the laws require 
you, as judges, to pronounce against men of our 
calamitous condition. — But we are also per- 
suaded, that as mere men, and out of this seat 
of rigorous justice, you are susceptive of the 
tender passions, and too humane not to com- 
miserate the unhappy situation of those, whom 
the law sometimes perhaps — exacts — from you 
to pronounce upon. No doubt you distinguish 
between offences which arise out of premedita- 
tion, and a disposition habituated to vice or iua- 



SAVAGE. 



223 



.morality; and transgressions, which are the 
unhappy and unforeseen effects of casual ab- 
sence of reason, and sudden impulse of pas- 
sion : we therefore hope you will contribute all 
you can to an extension of that mercy, which 
the gentlemen of the jury have been pleased to 
show Mr. Merchant, who (allowing facts as 
sworn against us by the evidence) has led us 
into this our calamity. I hope this will not be 
construed as if we meant to reflect upon that 
gentleman, or remove any thing from us upon 
him, or that we repine the more at our fate, be- 
cause he has no participation of it : no, my 
Lord ; for my part, I declare nothing could 
more soften my grief, than to be without any 
companion in so great a misfortune."* 

Mr. Savage had now no hopes of life, but 
from the mercy of the crown, which was very 
earnestly solicited by his friends, and which, 
with whatever difficulty the story may obtain 
belief, was obstructed only by his mother. 

To prejudice the Queen against him, she 
made use of an incident, which was omitted in 
the order of time, that it might be mentioned 
together with the purpose which it was made 
to serve. Mr. Savage, when he had discovered 
his birth, had an incessant desire to speak to 
his mother, who always avoided him in public, 
and refused him admission into her house. 
One evening walking, as it was his custom, in 
the street that she inhabited, he saw the door 
of her house by accident open ; he entered it, 
and, finding no person in the passage to hinder 
him, went up stairs to salute her. She dis- 
covered him before he could enter her chamber, 
alarmed the family with the most distressful 
outcries, and, when she had by her screams 
gathered them about her, ordered them to drive 
out of the house that villain, who had forced 
himself in upon her, and endeavoured to mur- 
der her. Savage, who had attempted with the 
most submissive tenderness to soften herbage, 
hearing her utter so detestable an accusation, 
thought it prudent to retire; and, I believe, 
never attempted afterwards to speak to her. 

But shocked as he was with her falsehood 
and her cruelty, he imagined that she intended 
no other use of her lie, than to set herself free 
from his embraces and solicitations, and was 
very far from suspecting that she would trea- 
sure it in her memory as an instrument of fu- 
ture wickedness, or that she would endeavour 
for this fictitious assault to deprive him of his 
life. 

But when the Queen was solicited for his 
pardon, and informed of the severe treatment 
which he had suffered from his judge, she an- 
swered that however unjustifiable might be the 
manner of his trial, or whatever extenuation 
the action for which he was condemned might 

* Mr. Savage's Life. 



admit, she could not think that man a proper 
object of the King's mercy, who had been ca- 
pable of entering his mother's house in the 
night, with an intent to murder her. 

By whom this atrocious calumny had been 
transmitted to the Queen ; whether she that in- 
vented had the front to relate it ; whether she 
found any one weak enough to credit it, or cor- 
rupt enough to concur with her in her hateful 
design, 1 know not ; but methods had been 
taken to persuade the Queen so strongly of the 
truth of it, that she for a long time refused to 
hear any one of those who petitioned for his 
life. 

Thus had Savage perished by the evidence of 
a bawd, a strumpet, and his mother, had not 
justice and compassion procured him an advo- 
cate of rank too great to be rejected unheard, 
and of virtue too eminent to be heard without 
being believed. His merit and his calamities 
happened to reach the ear of the Countess of 
Hertford, who engaged in his support with all 
the tenderness that is excited by pity, and all 
the. zeal which is kindled by generosity ; and, 
demanding an audience of the Queen, laid be- 
fore her the whole series of his mother's cruelty, 
exposed the improbability of an accusation by 
which he was charged with an intent to commit 
a murder that could produce no advantage, and 
soon convinced her how little his former con- 
duct could deserve to be mentioned as a reason 
for extraordinary severity. 

The interposition of this lady was so success- 
ful, that he was soon after admitted to bail, 
and, on the 9th of March, 1728, pleaded the 
King's pardon. 

It is natural to inquire upon what motives 
his mother could persecute him in a manner so 
outrageous and implacable; for what reason 
she could employ all the arts of malice, and all 
the snares of calumny, to take away the life of 
her own son — of a son who never injured her, 
who was never supported by her expense, nor 
obstructed any prospect of pleasure or advan- 
tage : why she would endeavour to destroy him 
by a lie — a lie which could not gain credit, but 
must vanish of itself at the first moment of ex- 
amination, and of which only this can be said 
to make it probable, that it may be observed 
from her conduct, that the most execrable 
crimes are sometimes committed without appa- 
rent temptation. 

This mother is still alive,* and may perhaps 
even yet, though her malice was so often defeat- 
ed, enjoy the pleasure of reflecting, that the life 
which she often endeavoured to destroy, was 
at least shortened by her maternal offices ; that 
though she could not transport her son to the 
plantations, bury him in the shop of a mechanic, 



* Sbe died, Oct. 11, 1753, at her house in Old 
Bond street, aged above fourscore. — R. 



224 



SAVAGE. 



cr hasten the hand of the public executioner, 
she has yet had the satisfaction of embittering 
Jl his hours, and forcing him into exigences 
hat hurried on his death. 

It is by no means necessary to aggravate the 
enormity of this woman's conduct, by placing 
it in opposition to that of the Countess of Hert- 
ford; no one can fail to observe how much 
more amiable it is to relieve, than to oppress, 
and to rescue innocence from destruction, than 
to destroy without an injury. 

Mr. Savage, during his imprisonment, his 
trial, and the time in which he lay under sen- 
tence of death, behaved with great firmness and 
equality of mind, and confirmed by his fortitude 
the esteem of those who before admired him for 
his abilities.* The peculiar circumstances of 
his life were made more generally known by a 
short account,f which was then published, and 
of which several thousands were in a few weeks 
dispersed over the nation; and the compassion 
of mankind operated so powerfully in his fa- 
vour, that he was enabled by frequent presents 
not only to support himself, but to assist Mr. 
Gregory in prison ; and, when he was pardoned 
and released, he found the number of his friends 
not lessened. 

The nature of the act for which he had been 
tried was in itself doubtful ; of the evidences 
which appeared against him, the character of 
the man was not unexceptionable, that of the 
woman notoriously infamous ; she, whose tes- 
timony chiefly influenced the jury to condemn 
him, afterwards retracted her assertions. He 
always himself denied that he was drunk, as 
had been generally reported. Mr. Gregory, 
who is now (in ] 744) collector of Antigua, is 
said to declare him far less criminal than he 
was imagined, even by some who favoured him ; 
and Page himself afterwards confessed, that he 
had treated him with uncommon rigour. When 
all these particulars are rated together, perhaps 
the memory of Savage may not be much sullied 
by his trial. 

Some time after he obtained his liberty, he 
met in the street the woman who had sworn 
with so much malignity againt him. She in- 

* It appears that during his confinement he wrote 
a letter to his mother, which he sent to Theophilus 
Cibber, that it might be transmitted to her through 
the means of Mr. Wilks. In his letter to Cibber 
he says — " As to death, I am easy, and dare meet 
it like a man — all that touches me is the concern 
of my friends, and a reconcilement with my mother 
■ — I cannot express the agony I felt when I wrote 
the letter to her — if you can find any decent excuse 
for showing it to Mrs. Oldfield, do ; for I would have 
all my friends (and that admirable lady in particu- 
lar) be satisfied I have done my duty towards it — 
Dr. Young to-day sent me a letter, most passionately 
kind."— R. 

f Written by Mr. Eeckingharn and another gen- 
tleman.— Dr. J, 



formed him, that she was in distress, and, with 
a degree of confidence not easily attainable, de- 
sired him to relieve her. He, instead of insult- 
ing her misery, and taking pleasure in the ca- 
lamities of one who had brought his life into 
danger, reproved her gently for her perjury ; 
and changing the only guinea that he had, di- 
vided it equally between her and himself. 

This is an action which in some ages would 
have made a saint, and perhaps in others a hero, 
and which, without any hyperbolical enco- 
miums, must be allowed to be an instance of 
uncommon generosity, an act of complicated 
virtue ; by which he at once relieved the poor, 
corrected the vicious, and forgave an enemy ; 
by which he at once remitted the strongest 
provocations, and exercised the most ardent 
charity. 

Compassion was indeed the distinguishing 
] quality of Savage ; he never appeared inclined 
| to take advantage of weakness, to attack the 
defenceless, or to press upon the falling : who- 
ever was distressed, was certain at least of hia 
' good wishes ; and when he could give no as- 
| sistance to extricate them from misfortunes, he 
endeavoured to sooth them by sympathy and 
tenderness. 

But when his heart was not softened by the 
sight of misery, he was sometimes obstinate in 
his resentment, and did not quickly lose the re- 
membrance of an injury. He always con tiki ued 
to speak with anger of the insolence antf par- 
tiality of Page, and a short time before his 
death revenged it by satire.* 

It is natural to enquire in what terms Mr. 
Savage spoke of this fatal action, when the 
danger was over, and he was under no necessity 
of using art to set his conduct in the fairest 
light. He was not willing to dwell upon it; 
and, if he transiently mentioned it, appeared 
neither to consider himself as a murderer, nor 
as a man wholly free from the guilt of blood. f 
How much and how long he regretted it, ap- 
peared in a poem which he published many 
years afterwards. On occasion of a copy of 
verses, in which the failings of good men were 
recounted, and in which the author had endea- 
voured to illustrate his position, that " the best 
may sometimes deviate from virtue," by an in- 
stance of murder committed by Savage in the 
heat of wine, Savage remarked, that it was no 
very just representation of a good man to sup- 
pose him liable 'to drunkenness, and disposed in 
his riots to cut throats. 

He was now indeed at liberty, but was, as 
before, without any other support than acci- 
dental favours and uncertain patronage afforded 
him ; sources by which he was sometimes very 



* Printed in the late collection. 
t In one of his Jotters he styles it " a fatal quarrel, 
but too well known." — Dr. J 



SAVAGE. 



225 



liberally supplied, and which at other times 
were suddenly stopped ; so that he spent his life 
between want and plenty; or, what was yet 
worse, between beggary and extravagance ; for, 
as whatever he received was the gift of cbance, 
which might as well favour him at one time as 
another, he was tempted to squander what he 
bad, because he always hoped to be immediately 
supplied. 

Another cause of his profusion was the ab- 
surd kindness of his friends, who at once re- 
warded and enjoyed his abilities, by treating 
him at taverns, and habituating him to plea- 
sures which he could not afford to enjoy, and 
which he was not able to deny himself, though 
he purchased the luxury of a single night by the 
anguish of cold and hunger for a week. 

The experience of these inconveniences deter- 
mined him to endeavour after some settled in- 
come, which having long found submission and 
entreaties fruitless, he attempted to extort from 
his mother by rougher methods. He had now, 
as he acknowledged, lost that tenderness for 
her, which the whole series of her cruelty had 
not been able wholly to repress, till he found, 
by the efforts which she made for his destruc- 
tion, that she was not content with refusing to 
assist him, and being neutral in his struggles 
with poverty, but was ready to snatch every op- 
portunity of adding to his misfortunes; and 
that she was to be considered as an enemy im- 
placably malicious, whom nothing but his blood 
could satisfy. He therefore threatened to ha- 
rass her with lampoons, and to publish a co- 
pious narrative of her conduct, unless she con- 
sented to purchase an exemption from infamy, 
by allowing him a pension. 

This expedient proved successful. Whether 
shame still survived, though virtue was ex- 
tinct, or whether her relations had more deli- 
cacy than herself, and imagined that some of 
the darts which satire might point at her would 
glance upon them ; Lord Tyrconnel, whatever 
were his motives, upon his promise to lay aside 
his design of exposing the cruelty of his mother, 
received him into his family, treated him as his 
equal, and engaged to allow him a pension of 
two hundred pounds a year. 

This was the golden part of Mr. Savage's 
life ; and for some time he had no reason to 
complain of fortune ; his appearance was splen- 
did, his expenses large, and his acquaintance 
extensive. He was courted by all who endea- 
voured to be thought men of genius, and ca- 
ressed by all who valued themselves upon a re- 
fined taste. To admire Mr. Savage, was a 
proof of discernment; and to be acquainted 
with him, was a title to poetical reputation. 
His presence was sufficient to make any place 
of public entertainment popular; and his ap- 
probation and example constituted the fashion. 
So powerful is genius, when It is invested with 



the glitter of affluence ! Men willingly pay to 
fortune that regard which they owe to merit, 
and are pleased when they have an opportunity 
at once of gratifying their vanity, and practis- 
ing their duty. This interval of prosperity 
furnished him with opportunities of enlarging 
his knowledge of human nature, by contem- 
plating life from its highest gradations to its 
lowest ; and, had he afterwards applied to 
dramatic poetry, he would, perhaps, not have 
had many superiors ; for, as he never suffered 
any scene to pass before his eyes without no- 
tice, he had treasured in his mind all the differ- 
ent combinations of passions, and the innumer- 
able mixtures of vice and virtue, which distin- 
guish one character from another ; and, as his 
conception was strong, his expressions were 
clear, he easily received impressions from ob- 
jects, and very forcibly transmitted them to 
others. 

Of his exact observations on human life he 
has left a proof, which would do honour to the 
greatest names, in a small pamphlet, called 
" The Author to be Let,"* where he introduces 
Iscariot Hackney, a prostitute scribbler, giving 
an account of his birth, his education, his dis- 
position and morals, habits of life and maxims 
of conduct. In the introduction are related 
many secret histories of the petty writers of 
that time, but sometimes mixed with ungener- 
ous reflections on their birth, their circumstan- 
ces, or those of their relations ; nor can it be 
denied, that some passages are such as Iscariot 
Hackney might himself have produced. 

He was accused likewise of living in an ap- 
pearance of friendship with some whom he sa- 
tirized, and of making use of the confidence 
which he gained by a seeming kindness, to dis- 
cover failings and expose them : it must be con- 
fessed, that Mr. Savage's esteem was no very 
certain possession, and that he would lampoon 
at one time those whom he had praised at 
another. 

It may be alleged, that the same man may 
change his principles ; and that he who was 
once deservedly commended may be afterwards 
satirized with equal justice ; or, that the poet 
was dazzled with the appearance of virtue, and 
found the man whom he had celebrated, when 
he had an opportunity of examining him more 
narrowly, unworthy of the panegyric which he 
had too hastily bestowed; and that, as a false 
satire ought to be recanted, for the sake of him 
whose reputation may be injured, false praise 
ought likewise to be obviated, lest the distinc- 
tion between vice and virtue should be lost, lest 
a bad man should be trusted upon the credit of 
his encomiast, or lest others" should endeavour 
to obtain the like praises by the same means. 

But though these excuses may be often plau- 



I'rhitcd in his Works, vol. 



231. 



226 



SAVAGE. 



sible, and sometimes just, they are very seldom 
satisfactory to mankind ; and the writer who is 
not constant to his subject, quickly sinks into 
contempt, his satire loses its force, and his pane- 
gyric its value ; and he is only considered at 
one time as a flatterer, and as a calumniator at 
another. 

To avoid these imputations, it is only neces- 
sary to follow the rules of virtue, and to pre- 
serve an unvalued regard to truth. For though 
it is undoubtedly possible that a man, however 
cautious, may be sometimes deceived by an art- 
ful appearance of virtue, or by false evidences 
of guilt, such errors will not be frequent ; and 
it will be allowed, that the name of an author 
would never have been made contemptible, 
had no man ever said what he did not think, 
or misled others but waen he was himself de- 
ceived. 

" The Author to be Let" was first published 
in a single pamphlet, and afterwards inserted 
in a collection of pieces relating to the " Dun- 
ciad," which were addressed by Mr. Savage 
to the Earl of Middlesex, in a dedication* 
which he was prevailed upon to sign, though he 
did not write it, and in which there are some 
positions, that the true author would perhaps 
not have published under his own name, and 
on which Mr. Savage afterwards reflected with 
no great satisfaction : the enumeration of the 
bad effects of the uncontrolled freedom of the 
press, and the assertion that the liberties taken 
by the writers of journals with " their supe- 
riors, were exorbitant and unjustifiable," very 
ill became men, who have themselves not al- 
ways shown the exactest regard to the laws of 
subordination in their writings, and who have 
often satirised those that at least thought them- 
selves their superiors, as they were eminent for 
their hereditary rank, and employed in the 
highest offices of the kingdom. But this is 
only an instance of that partiality which almost 
every man indulges with regard to himself : the 
liberty of the press is a blessing when we are 
inclined to write against others, and a calamity 
%vhen we find ourselves overborne by the multi- 
tude of our assailants; as the power of the 
crown is always thought too great by those Avho 
suffer by its influence, and too little by those in 
whose favour it is exerted; and a standing 
army is generally accounted necessary by those 
who command, and dangerous and oppressive 
by those who support it. 

Mr. Savage was likewise very far from be- 
lieving that the letters annexed to each species 
of bad poets in the Bathos were, as he was di- 
rected to assert, " set down at random ;" for 
when he was charged by one of his friends 
with putting his name to such an improba- 



bility, he had no other answer to make than 
" he did not think of it;" and his friend had 
too much tenderness to reply, that next to the 
crime of writing contrary to what he thought, 
was that of writing without thinking. 

After having remarked what is false in this 
dedication, it is proper that I observe the im- 
partiality which i recommend, by declaring 
what Savage asserted, that the account of the 
circumstances which attended the publication 
of the " Dunciad," however strange and im- 
probable, was exactly true. 

The publication of this piece at this time 
raised Mr. Savage a great number of enemies 
among those that were attacked by Mr. Pope, 
with whom he was considered as a kind of con- 
federate, and whom he was suspected of sup- 
plying with private intelligence and secret in- 
cidents ; so that the ignominy of an informer 
was added to the terror of a satirist. 

That he was not altogether free from literary 
hypocrisy, and that he sometimes spoke one 
thing and wrote another, cannot be denied ; be- 
cause he himself confessed, that, when he lived 
in great familiarity with Dennis, he wrote an 
epigram* against him. 

Mr. Savage, however, set all the malice of all 
the pigmy writers at defiance, and thought the 
friendship of Mr. Pope cheaply purchased by 
being exposed to their censure and their hatred ; 
nor had he any reason to repent of the prefer- 
ence, for he found Mr. Pope a steady and una- 
lienable friend almost to the end of his life. 

About this time, notwithstanding his avowed 
neutrality with regard to party, he published a 
panegyric on Sir Robert Walpole, for which he 
was rewarded by him with twenty guineas ; a 
sum not very large, if either the excellence of 
the performance, or tic affluence of the patron, 
be considered ; but greater than he afterwards 
obtained from a person of yet higher rank, and 
more desirous in appearance of being distin- 
guished as a patron of literature. 

As he was very far from approving the con- 
duct of Sir Robert Walpole, and in conversa- 
tion mentioned him sometimes with acrimony, 
and generally with contempt ; as he was one of 
those who was always zealous in his assertions 
of the justice of the late opposition, jealous of 
the rights of the people, and alarmed by the 
long- continued triumph of the court; it was 
natural to ask him what could induce him to 



d. Works, vol. ii. p. 233. 



This epicram was, I believe, never published. 

Should Dennis publish you had stabb'd your brother, 
Lampoon'd your monarch, or debauch V. your moth sr ; 
Say, what rever ge on Dennis can be bad, 
Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad ? 
On one so poor you cannot take the law, 
On one so old your sword you scorn to draw. 
Uncaged then, let the harmless monster ratfo. 
Secure in dulness, madness, want, and a^e. 

Dt. S. 






SAVAGE. 



227 



employ his poetry in praise of that man who 
was, in his opinion, an enemy to liberty, and 
an oppressor of his country ? He alleged, that 
he was then dependent upon the Lord Tyrcon- 
nel, who was an implicit follower of the minis- 
try ; and that, being enjoined by him, not with- 
out menaces, to write in praise of his leader, he 
had not resolution sufficient to sacrifice the plea- 
sure of affluence to that of integrity. 

On this, and on many other occasions, he was 
ready to lament the misery of living at the 
tables of other men, which was his fate from 
the beginning to the end of his life ; for I know 
not whether he ever had, for three months to- 
gether, a settled habitation, in which he could 
claim a right of residence. 

To this unhappy state it is just to impute 
much of the inconstancy of his conduct ; for 
though a readiness to comply with the inclina- 
tion of others was no part of his natural cha- 
racter, yet he was sometimes obliged to relax 
his obstinacy, and submit his own judgment, 
and even his virtue, to the government of those 
by whom he was supported : so that, if his mi- 
series were sometimes the consequences of his 
faults, he ought not yet to be wholly excluded 
from compassion, because his faults were very 
often the effects of his misfortunes. 

In this gay period* of his life, while he* was 
surrounded by affluence and pleasure, he pub- 
lished " The Wanderer," a moral poem, of 
which the design is comprised in these lines : 

I fly all public care, all venal strife, 
To try the still, compared with active life; 
To prove, by these, the sobs of men may owe 
The fruits of bliss to bursting clouds of wo; 
That even calamity, by thought refined, 
Inspirits and adorns the thinking mind. 

And more distinctly in the following passage : 

By wo, the soul to daring action swells: 

By wo, in plaintless patience it excels : 

From patience, prudent clear experience springs, 

And traces knowledge through the course of things ! 

Thence hope is form'd, thence fortitude, success, 

Renown : — whate'er men covet and caress. 

This performance was always considered by 
himself as his masterpiece; and Mr. Pope, 
when he asked his opinion of it, told him, that 
he read it once over, and was not displeased 
with it; that it gave him more pleasure at the 
second perusal, and delighted him still more at 
the third. 

It has been generally objected to " The Wan- 
derer," that the disposition of the parts is irre- 
gular : that the design is obscure, and the plan 
perplexed ; that the images, however beautiful, 
succeed each other without order ; and that the 
whole performance is not so much a regular 

• 1729. 



fabric, as . a heap of shining materials thrown 
together by accident, which strikes rather with 
the solemn magnificence of a stupendous ruin, 
than the elegant grandeur of a finished pile. 

The criticism is universal, and therefore it is 
reasonable to believe it at least in a great de- 
gree just; but Mr. Savage was always of a 
contrary opinion, and thought his drift could 
only be missed by negligence or stupidity, and 
that the whole plan was regular, and the parts 
distinct. 

It was never denied to abound with strong 
representations of nature, and just observations 
upon life ; and it may easily be observed, that 
most of his pictures have an evident tendency 
to illustrate his first great position, " that good 
is the consequence of evil." The sun that 
burns up the mountains, fructifies the vales ; 
the deluge that rushes down the broken rocks 
with dreadful impetuosity, is separated into 
purling brooks ; and the rage of the hurricane 
purifies the air. 

Even in this poem he has not been able to 
forbear one touch upon the cruelty of his mo- 
ther, which, though remarkably delicate and 
tender, is a proof how deep an impression it 
had upon his mind. 

This must be at least acknowledged, which 
ought to be thought equivalent to many other 
excellences, that this poem can promote no other 
purposes than those of virtue, and that it is 
written with a very strong sense of the efficacy 
of religion. 

But my province is rather to give the history 
of Mr. SaA r age's performances than to display 
their beauties, or to obviate the criticisms which 
they have occasioned ; and therefore I shall not 
dwell upon the particular passages which de- 
serve applause ; I shall neither show the excel- 
lence of his descriptions, nor expatiate on the 
terrific portrait of suicide, nor point out the 
artful touches by which he has distinguished 
the intellectual features of the rebels who suffer 
death in his last canto. It is, however, proper 
to observe, that Mr. Savage always declared the 
characters wholly fictitious, and without the 
least allusion to any real persons or actions. 

From a poem so diligently laboured, and sc 
successfully finished, it might be reasonably ex- 
pected that he should have gained considerable 
advantage ; nor can it without some degree of 
indignation and concern be told, that he sold 
the copy for ten guineas, of which he afterwards 
returned two, that the two last sheets of the 
work might be reprinted, of which he had in 
his absence intrusted the correction to a friend, 
who was too indolent to perform it with ac- 
curacy. 

A superstitious regard to the correction of 
his sheets was one of Mr. Savage's peculiari- 
ties : he often altered, revised, recurred to his 
first reading or punctuation, and again adopted 



228 



SAVAGE. 



the alteration: he was dubfous and irresolute 
without end, as on a question of the last im- 
portance and at last was seldom satisfied : the 
intrusion or omission of a comma was sufficient 
to discompose him, and he would lament an 
error of a single letter as a heavy calamity. 
In one of his letters relating to an impression 
of some verses, he remarks, that he had, with 
regard to the correction of the proof, " a spell 
Upon him j" and indeed the anxiety with which 
he felt upon the minutest and most trifning 
niceties deserved no other name than that of 
fascination. 

That he sold so valuable a performance for 
so small a price, was not to be imputed either 
to necessity, by which the learned and ingenious 
are often obliged to submit to very hard con- 
ditions ; or to avarice, by which the booksellers 
are frequently incited to oppress that genius by 
which they are supported ; but to that intem- 
perate desire of pleasure, and habitual slavery 
to his passions, which involved him in many 
perplexities. He happened at that time to be 
engaged in the pursuit of some trifling gratifi- 
cation, and, being without money for the pre- 
sent occasion, sold his poem to the first bidder, 
and perhaps for the first price that was proposed, 
and would probably have been content with 
less, if less had been offered him. 

This poem was addressed to the Lord Tyr- 
connel, not only in the first lines, but in a form- 
al dedication filled with the highest strains of 
panegyric, and the warmest professions of gra- 
titude, but by no means remarkable for delicacy 
of connection or elegance of style* 

These praises in a short time he found him- 
self inclined to retract, being discarded by the 
man on whom he had bestowed them, and 
whom he then immediately discovered not to 
have deserved them. Of this quarrel, which 
every day made more bitter, Lord Tyrconnel 
and Mr. Savage assigned very different reasons, 
which might perhaps all in reality concur, 
though they were not all convenient to be al- 
leged by either party. Lord Tyrconnel affirmed 
that it was the constant practice of Mr. Savage 
to enter a tavern with any company that pro- 
posed it, drink the most expensive wines with 
great profusijn, and when the reckoning was 
demanded, to be without money : if, as it often 
happened, his company were willing to defray 
his part, the affair ended without any ill conse- 
quences; but if they were refractory, and ex- 
pected that the wine should be paid for by him 
that drank it, his method of composition was, 
to take them with him to his own apartment, 
assume the government of the house, and order 
the butler in an imperious manner to set the 
best wine in the cellar before his company, who 
often drank till they foi'got the respect due to 
ilhe house in which they were entertained, in- 
dulged themselves in the utmost extravagance 



of merriment, practised the most licentious 
frolics, and committed all the outrages of drunk- 
enness. 

Nor was this the only charge which Lord 
Tyrconnel brought against him : having given 
him a collection of valuable books, stamped 
with his own arms, he had the mortification to 
see them in a short time exposed to sale upon 
the stalls, it being usual with Mr, Savage, when 
he wanted a small sum, to take his books to the 
pawnbroker. 

Whoever was acquainted with Mr. Savage 
easily credited both these accusations : for hav- 
ing been obliged, from his first entrance into 
the world, to subsist upon expedients, affluence 
was not able to exalt him above them ; and so 
much was he delighted with wine and conversa- 
tion, and so long had he been accustomed to live 
by chance, that he would at any time go to the 
tavern without scruple, and trust for the reck- 
oning to the liberality of his company, and fre- 
quently of company to whom he was very little 
known. This conduct indeed very seldom 
drew upon him those inconveniences that might 
be feared by any other person ; for his conver- 
sation was so entertaining, and his address so 
pleasing, that few thought the pleasure which 
they received from him dearly purchased, by 
paying for his wine. It was his peculiar hap- 
piness, that he scarcely ever found a stranger, 
whom he did not leave a friend ; but it must 
likewise be added, that he had not often $ 
friend long, without obliging him to become a 
stranger. 

Mr. Savage, on the other hand, declared, 
that Lord Tyrconnel* quarrelled with him be- 
cause he would not subtract from his own lux- 
ury and extravagance what he had promised to 
allow him, and that his resentment was only a 
plea for the violation of his promise. He as- 
serted, that he had done nothing that ought tc 
exclude him from that subsistence which he 
thought not so much a favour as a debt, since it 
was offered him upon conditions which he had 
never broken; and that his only fault wa3 5 
that he could not be supported with nothing. 

He acknowledged, that Lord Tyrconnel often 
exhorted him to regulate his method of life, and 
not to spend all his nights in taverns, and thai 
he appeared very desirous that he would pasi- 
those hours with him, which he so freely be- 
stowed upon others. This demand Mr. Sa- 
vage considered as a censure of his conduct, 
which he could never patiently bear, and which, 
in the latter and cooler parts of his life, was si 
offensive to him, that he declared it as his reso 
lution, " to spurn that friend who should pre 



* His expression in one of Lis letters was, " that 
Lord Tyrconnel had involved his estate, and there- 
fore poorly sought an occasion to quarrel with 
him."— Dr. J. 



SAVAGE. 



229 



sume to dictate to him;" and it is not likely 
that in his earlier years he received admonitions 
with more calmness. 

He was likewise inclined to resent such ex- 
pectations, as tending to infringe his liberty, of 
which he was very jealous, when it was neces- 
sary to the gratification of his passions ; and 
declared, that the request was still more unrea- 
sonable, as the company to which he was to 
have been confined was insupportably disagree- 
able. This assertion affords another instance 
of that inconsistency of his writings with his 
conversation, which was so often to be observed. 
He forgot how lavishly he had in his dedication 
to " The Wanderer," extolled the delicacy and 
penetration, the humanity and generosity, the 
candour and politeness, of the man, whom, 
when he no longer loved him, he declared to be 
a wretch without understanding, without good- 
nature, and without justice ; of whose name he 
thought himself obliged to leave no trace in any 
future edition of his writings ; and accordingly 
blotted it out of that copy of " The Wanderer" 
which was in his hands. 

During his continuance with the Lord Tyr- 
connel, he wrote " The Triumph of Health and 
Mirth," on the recovery of Lady Tyrconnel 
from a languishing illness. This performance 
is remarkable, not only for the gayety of the 
ideas, and the melody of the numbers, but for 
the agreeable fiction upon which it is formed. 
Mirth, overwhelmed with sorrow for the sick- 
ness of her favourite, takes a flight in quest of 
her sister Health, whom she finds reclined 
upon the brow of a lofty mountain, amidst the 
fragrance of perpetual spring, with the breezes, of 
the morning sporting about her. Being soli- 
cited by her sister Mirth, she readily promises 
her assistance, flies away in a cloud, and im - 
pregnates the waters of Bath with new virtues, 
by which the sickness of Belinda is relieved. 

As the reputation of his abilities, the parti- 
cular circumstances of his birth and life, the 
splendour of his appearance, and the distinction 
which was for some time paid him by Lord 
Tyrconnel, entitled him to familiarity with 
persons of higher rank than those to whose 
conversation he had been before admitted ; he 
did not fail to gratify that curiosity which in- 
duced h im to take a nearer view of those whom 
their birth, their employments, or their for- 
tunes, necessarily place at a distance from the 
greatest part of mankind, and to examine whe- 
ther their merit was magnified or diminished 
by the medium through which it was contem- 
plated ; whether the splendour with which they 
dazzled their admirers was inherent in them- 
selves, or only reflected on them by the objects 
that surrounded them ; and whether great men 
were selected for high stations, or high stations 
made great men. 

For this purpose he took all opportunities of 



conversing familiarly with those who were moit 
conspicuous at that time for their power or their 
influence : he watched their looser moments, 
and examined their domestic behaviour, with 
that acuteness which nature had given him, and 
which the uncommon variety of his life had 
contributed to increase, and that inquisitiveness 
which must always be produced in a vigorous 
mind, by an absolute freedom from all pressing 
or domestic engagements. 

His discernment was quick, and therefore he 
soon found in every person, and in every affair, 
something that deserved attention : he was 
supported by others without any care for him- 
self, and was therefore at leisure to pursue his 
observations. 

More circumstances to constitute a critic on 
human life could not easily concur ; nor indeed 
could any man who assumed from accidental 
advantages more praise than he could justly 
claim; from his real merit, admit any acquain- 
tance more dangerous than that of Savage ; of 
whom likewise it must be confessed, that abili- 
ties really exalted above the common level, or 
virtue refined from passion, or proof against 
corruption, could not easily find an abler judge, 
or a warmer advocate. 

What was the result of Mr. Savage's inquiry, 
though he was not much accustomed to conceal 
his discoveries, it may not be entirely safe to 
relate, because the persons whose characters he 
criticised are powerful ; and power and resent- 
ment are seldom strangers : nor would it per- 
haps be wholly just ; because what he asserted 
in conversation might, though true in genera], 
be heightened by some momentary ardour of 
imagination, and/ as it can be delivered only 
from memory, may be imperfectly represented ; 
so that the picture, at first aggravated, and then 
unskilfully copied, may be justly suspected to 
retain no great resemblance of the original. 

It may, however, be observed, that he did not 
appear to have formed very elevated ideas of 
those to whom the administration of affairs, or 
the conduct of parties, have been entrusted ; 
who have been considered as the advocates of 
the crown, or the guardians of the people ; and 
who have obtained the most implicit confidence, 
and the loudest applauses. Of one particular 
person, who has been at one time so popular as 
to be generally esteemed, and at another so for- 
midable as to be universally detested, he ob- 
served, that his acquisitions had been small, or 
that his capacity was narrow, and that the 
whole range of his mind was from obscenity to 
politics,-and from politics to obscenity. 

But the opportunity of indulging his specu- 
lations on great characters was now at an end. 
He was banished from the table of Lord Tyr- 
connel, and turned again adrift upon the world, 
without prospect of finding quickly any other 
harbour. As prudence was not one of the vie* 
G s 



2 SO 



S A V A G E. 



tues by which he was distinguished, he had 
made no provision against a misfortune like 
this. And though it is not to be imagined but 
that the separation must for some time have ! 
been preceded by coldness, peevishness, or neg- 
lect, though it was undoubtedly the consequence j 
of accumulated provocations on both sides : yet 
every one that knew Savage will readily believe, I 
that to him it was sudden as a stroke of thun- 
der; that, though he might have transiently 
suspected it, he had never suffered any thought | 
so unpleasing to sink into his mind ; but that ! 
he had driven it away by amusements, or 
dreams of future felicity and affluence, and had 
never taken any measures by which, he might 
prevent a precipitation from plenty to indigence. 

This quarrel and separation, and the difficul- 
ties to which Mr. Savage was exposed by them, 
were soon knownboth to his friends and enemies : 
nor was it long before he perceived, from the 
behaviour of both, how much is added to the 
lustre of genius, by the ornaments of wealth. 

His condition did not appear to excite much 
compassion ; for he had not always been careful 
to U9e the advantages he enjoyed with that mo- 
deration which ought to have been with more 
than usual caution preserved by him, who knew, 
if he had reflected, that he was only a dependant ! 
on the bounty of another, whom he could ex- 
pect to support him no longer than he endea- 
voured to preserve his favour by complying 
with his inclinations, and whom he nevertheless 
set at defiance, and was continually irritating 
by negligence or encroachments. 

Examples need not be sought at any great 
distance to prove, that superiority of fortune 
has a natural tendency to kindle pride, and that 
pride seldom fails to exert itself in contempt 
and insult ; and if this is often the effect of he- 
reditary wealth, and of honours enjoyed only 
by the merit of others, it is some extenuation of 
any indecent triumphs, to which this unhappy 
man may have been betrayed, that his prosperity 
was heightened by the force of novelty, and 
made more intoxjcating by a sense of the misery 
in which he had so long languished, and per- 
haps of the insults which he had formerly borne, 
and which he might now think himself entitled 
to revengt?. It is too common for those who 
have unjustly suffered pain, to inflict it likewise 
in their turn with the same injustice, and to 
imagine that they have a right to treat others 
as they have themselves been treated. 

That Mr. Savage was too much elevated by 
any good fortune, is generally known ; and some 
passages of bis Introduction to " The Author 
to be let," sufficiently show that he did no't 
wholly refrain from such satire as he after- 
wards thought very unjust when he was ex- 
posed to it himself; for, when he was afterwards 
ridiculed in tbe character of a distressed poet, 
he very easily discovered, that distress was not 



a proper subject for merriment, nor topic of in. 
vective. He was then able to discern, that if 
misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be re- 
verenced ; if of ill-fortune, to be pitied : and if 
of vice, not to be insulted, because it is perhaps 
itself a punishment adequate to the crime by 
which it was produced. And the humanity of 
that man can deserve no panegyric, who is ca- 
pable of reproaching a criminal in the hands of 
the executioner. 

But these reflections, though they readily oc- 
curred to him in the first and last parts of his 
life, were, I am afraid, for a long time forgot- 
ten ; at least they were, like many other max- 
ims, treasured up in his mind rather for show 
than use, and operated very little upon his con- 
duct, however elegantly he might sometimes 
explain, or however forcibly he might inculcate 
them. 

His degradation, therefore, from the condition 
which he had enjoyed with such wanton 
thoughtlessness, was considered by many as an 
occasion of triumph. Those who had before 
paid their court to him without success, soon 
returned the contempt which they had suffered; 
and they who had received favours from him, 
(for of such favom's as he could bestow he was 
very liberal,) did not always remember *hem. 
So much more certain are the effects of resent- 
ment than of gratitude : it is not only to many 
more pleasing to recollect those faults which 
place others below them, than those virtues by 
which they are themselves comparatively de- 
pressed ; but it is likewise more easy to neglect 
than to recompense; and though there are few 
who will practise a laborious virtue, there will 
never be wanting multitudes that will indulge 
in easy vice. 

Savage, however, was very little disturbed at 
the marks of contempt which his ill- fortune 
brought upon him, from those whom he never 
esteemed, and with whom he never considered 
himself as levelled by any calamities : and 
though it was not without some uneasiness that 
he saw some, whose friendship he valued, 
change their behaviour ; he yet observed their 
coldness "without much emotion, considered them 
as the slaves of fortune, and the worshippers of 
prosperity, and was more inclined to despise 
them, than to lament himself. 

It does not appear that, after this return of 
his wants, he found mankind equally favourable 
to him as at his first appearance in the world. 
His story, though in reality not less melancholy, 
was less affecting, because it was no longer 
new ; it therefore procured him no new friends ; 
and those that had formerly relieved him, 
thought they might now consign him to others. 
He was now likewise considered by many ra- 
ther as criminal, than as unhappy; for tha 
friends of Lord Tyrconnel, and of his mother, 
were sufficient! v industrious to publish his 



SAVAGE. 



131 



weaknesses, which were indeed very numerous; 
and nothing was forgotten that might make 
him either hateful or ridiculous. 

It cannot but be imagined, that such repre- 
sentations of his faults must make great num- 
bers less sensible of his distress : many, who 
had only an opportunity to hear one part, made 
no scruple to propagate the account which they 
received : many assisted their circulation from 
malice or revenge ; and perhaps many pretended 
to credit them, that they might with a better 
grace withdraw their regard, or withhold their 
assistance. 

Savage, however, was not one of those who 
suffered himself to be injured without resist- 
ancp, nor was less diligent in exposing the faults 
of Lord Tyrconnel ; over whom he obtained at 
least this advantage, that he drove him first to 
the practice of outrage and violence : for he 
was so much provoked by the wit and virulence 
of Savage, that he came with a number of at- 
tendants, that did no honour to his courage, to 
beat him at a coffee-house. But it happened 
that he had left the place a few minutes ; and 
his Lordship had, without danger, the pleasure 
of boasting how he would have treated him. 
Mr. Savage went next day to repay his visit at 
his own house; but was prevailed on, by his 
domestics, to retire without insisting upon see- 
ing him. 

Lord Tyrconnel was accused by Mr. Savage 
of some actions, which scarcely any provoca- 
tions will be thought sufficient to justify; such 
as seizing what he had in his lodgings, and 
other instances of wanton cruelty, by which he 
increased the distress of Savage, without any 
advantage to himself. 

These mutual accusations were retorted on 
both sides for many years, with the utmost de- 
gree of virulence and rage; and time seemed 
rather to augment than diminish their re'sent- 
ment. That the anger of Mr. Savage should 
be kept alive, is not strange, because he felt 
every day the consequences of the quarrel ; but 
it might reasonably have been hoped, that 
Lord Tyrconnel might have relented, and at 
length have forgotten those provocations, which, 
however they might have once inflamed him, 
had not in reality much hurt him. 

The spirit of Mr. Savage indeed never suf- 
fered him to solicit a reconciliation ; he returned 
reproach for reproach, and insult for insult; 
his superiority of wit supplied the disadvantages 
of his fortune, and enabled him to form a party, 
and prejudice great numbers in his favour. 

But though this might be some gratification 
of his vanity, it afforded very little relief to his 
necessities; and he was very frequently reduced 
to uncommon hardships, of which, however, he 
never made any mean or importunate com- 
plaints, being formed rather to bear misery 



with fortitude, than enjoy prosperity with mo- 
deration. 

He now thought himself again at liberty to 
expose the cruelty of his mother ; and, therefore, 
I believe, about this time published " The Bas- 
tard," a poem remarkable for the vivacious 
sallies of thought in the beginning, where ha 
makes a pompous enumeration of the imaginary 
advantages of base birth ; and the pathetic sen- 
timents at the end, where he recounts the real 
calamities which lie suffered by the crime of 
his parents. 

The vigour and spirit of the verses, the pecu- 
liar circumstances of the author, the novelty of 
the subject, and the notoriety of the story to 
which the allusions are made, procured this 
performance a very favourable reception ; great 
numbers were immediately dispersed, and edi- 
tions were multiplied with unusual rapidity. 

One circumstance attended the publication 
which Savage used to relate with great satisfac- 
tion. His mother, to whom the poem was 
with " due reverence" inscribed, happened then 
to be at Bath, where she could not conveniently 
retire from censure, or conceal herself from ob- 
servation ; and no sooner did the reputation of 
the poem begin to spread, than she heard it re- 
peated in all places of concourse ; nor could she 
enter the assembly-rooms, or cross the walks, 
without being saluted with some lines from 
" The Bastard." 

This was perhaps the first time that she ever 
discovered a sense of shame, and on this _pcca- 
sion the power of wit was very conspicuous; 
the wretch who had without scruple proclaimed 
herself an adulteress, and who had first endea- 
voured to starve her son, then to transport him, 
and afterwards to hang him, was not able to 
bear the representation of her own conduct ; 
but fled from reproach, though she felt no pain 
from guilt, and left Bath with the utmost 
haste, to shelter herself among the crowds of 
London. 

Thus Savage had the satisfaction of finding, 
that, though he could not reform his mother, he 
could punish her, and that he did not always 
suffer alone. 

The pleasure which he received from this in- 
crease of his poetical reputation, was sufficient 
for some time to overbalance the miseries of 
want, which this performance did not much al- 
leviate ; for it was sold for a very trivial sum 
to a bookseller, who, though the success was so 
uncommon that five impressions were sold, of 
which many Avere undoubtedly very numerous, 
had not generosity sufficient to admit the un- 
happy writer to any part of the profit. 

The sale of this poem Avas always mentioned 
by Savage with the utmost elevation of heart, 
and referred to by him as an incontestible 
proof of a general acknoAvledgment of hi* 



232 



SAVAGE. 



abilities. It was indeed the only production of j 
"which he eould justly boast a general reception, j 

But though he did not lose the opportunity | 
which success gave him of setting a high rate on 
his abilities, but paid due deference to the suf- 
frages of mankind when they were given in 
his favour, he did not suffer his esteem of him- 
self to depend upon others, nor found any thing 
sacred in the voice of the people when they were 
inclined to censure him ; he then readily show- 
ed the folly of expecting that the public should 
Judge right, observed how slowly poetical me- 
rit had often forced its way into the "world ; he 
contented himself with the applause of men of 
judgment, and was somewhat disposed to ex- 
clude all those from the character of men of 
judgment who did not applaud him. 

But he was at other times more favourable to 
mankind than to think them blind to the beau- 
ties of his works, and imputed the slowness of j 
their sale to other causes : either they were 
published at a time when the town was empty, 
or when the attention of the public was en- 
grossed by some struggle in the parliament, or 
some other object of general concern ; or they 
were by the neglect of the publisher not dili- 
gently dispersed, or by his avarice not advertised 
with sufficient frequency. Address, or indus- 
try, or liberality, was always wanting ; and the 
blame was laid rather on any person than the 
author. 

By arts like these, arts which every man 
practises in some degree, and to which too 
much of the little tranquillity of life is to ,be 
ascribed, Savage was always able to live at 
peace with himself. Had he indeed only made 
use of these expedients to alleviate the loss, or 
want, of fortune or reputation, or any other 
advantages which it is not in man's power to 
bestow upon himself, they might have been 
justly mentioned as instances of a philosophical 
mind, and very properly proposed to the imita- 
tion of multitudes, who, for want of diverting 
their imaginations with the same dexterity, lan- 
guish under afflictions which might be easily 
removed. 

It were doubtless to be wished, that truth 
and reason were universally prevalent : that 
every thing were esteemed according to its real 
value; and that men would secure themselves 
from being disappointed in their endea> T ours 
after happiness, by placing it only in virtue, 
which is always to be obtained ; but, if adven- 
titious and foreign pleasures must be pursued, 
it would be perhaps of some benefit, since that 
pursuit must frequently be fruitless, if the prac- 
tice of Savage could be taught, that folly might 
be an antidote to folly, and one fallacy be ob- 
viated by another. 

But the danger of this pleasing intoxication 
m\-st not be concealed ; nor indeed can any one, 
(titer having observed the life of Savage] need 



to be cautioned against it. By imputing none 
of his miseries to himself, he continued to act 
upon the same principles, and to follow the 
same path ; was never made wiser by his suffer- 
ings, nor preserved by one misfortune from fall- 
ing into another. He proceeded throughout his 
life to tread the same steps on the same circle ; 
always applauding his past conduct, or at least 
forgetting it, to amuse himself with phantoms 
of happiness, which were dancing before him ; 
and willingly turned his eyes from the light of 
reason, when it would have discoA r ered the illu- 
sion, and shoAvn him, what he never wished to 
see, his real state. 

He is even accused, after having lulled his 
imagination with those ideal opiates, of having 
tried the same experiment upon his conscience ; 
and, having accustomed himself to impute all 
deviations from the right to foreign causes, it 
is certain that he was upon every occasion too 
easily reconciled to himself; and that he ap- 
peared very little to regret those practices 
which had impaired his reputation. The 
reigning error of his life was, that he mistook 
the love for the practice of virtue ; and was 
indeed not so much a good man, as the friend of 
goodness. 

This at least must be allowed him, that he 
always preserved a strong sense of the dignity, 
the beauty, and the necessity of virtue ; and 
that he never contributed deliberately to spread 
corruption among mankind. His actions, 
which were generally precipitate, were often 
blameable ; but his writings, being the produc- 
tions of study, uniformly tended to the exalta- 
tion of the mind, and the propagation of moral 
ity and piety. 

These writings may improve mankind, when 
his failings shall be forgotten ; and therefore he 
must be considered, upon the whole, as a bene- 
factor to the world ; nor can his personal exam- 
ple do any hurt, since whoever hears of his 
faults will hear of the miseries which they 
brought upon him, and which would deserve 
less pity, had not his condition been such as 
madt his faults pardonable. He may be con- 
sidered as a child exposed to all the temptations 
of indigence, at an age when resolution was 
not yet strengthened by conviction, nor virtue 
confirmed by habit ; a circumstance which, in 
his " Bastard," he laments in a very affecting 
manner •. 

No Mother's care 

Shielded my infant innocence with prayer; 

No father's guardian hand my youth maintain'd, 

Call'd forth my virtues, or from vice restraiu'd. 

" The Bastard," however it might provoke 
or mortify his mother, could not be expected to 
melt her to compassion, so that he was still un- 
der the same want of the necessaries of life; 
and he therefore exerted all the interest which 



SAVAGE. 



233 



his wit, or his birth, or his misfortunes, could 
procure, to obtain, upon the death of Eusden, 
the place of poet laureat, and prosecuted his ap- 
plication with so much diligence, that the King 
publicly declared it his intention to bestow it 
upon him ; but such was the fate of Savage, 
that even the King, when he intended his ad- 
vantage, was disappointed in his schemes ; for 
the Lord Chamberlain, who has the disposal of 
the laurel, as one of the appendages of his office, 
either did not know the King's design, or did 
not approve it, or thought the nomination of 
the laureat an encroachment upon his rights, 
and therefore bestowed the laurel upon Colley 
Cibber. 

Mr. Savage, thus disappointed, took a resolu- 
tion of applying to the Queen, that, having 
once given him life, she would enable him to 
support it, and therefore published a short poem 
on her birth day to which he gave the odd title 
of " Volunteer Laureat." The event of this 
essay he has himself related in the following 
letter, which he prefixed to the poem, when he 
afterwards reprinted it in " The Gentleman's 
Magazine," whence I have copied it entire, as 
this was one of the few attempts in which Mr. 
Savage succeeded. 

" Mr. Urban - , 
" In your Magazine for February you pub- 
lished the last " Volunteer Laureat," written 
on a very melancholy occasion, the death of the 
royal patroness of arts and literature in general, 
and of the author of that poem in particular ; 
I now send you the first that Mr. Savage wrote 
under that title. — This gentleman, notwith- 
standing a very considerable interest, being, on 
the death of Mr. Eusden, disappointed of the 
laureat's place, wrote the following verses ; 
which were no sooner published, but the late 
Queen sent to a bookseller for them. The* au- 
thor had not at that time a friend either to get 
him introduced, or his poem presented at court ; 
yet, such was the unspeakable goodness of that 
Princess, that, notwithstanding this act of 
ceremony was "wanting, in a few days after 
publication, Mr. Savage received a bank-bill 
of fifty pounds, and a gracious message from 
her Majesty, by the Lords North and Guil- 
ford, to this effect : ' That her Majesty was 
highly pleased with the verses ; that she took 
particularly kind his lines there relating to the 
King; that he had permission to write annually 
on the same subject, and that he should yearly 
receive the like present, till something better 
(which was her Majesty's intention) could be 
done for him.' After this he was permitted to 
present one of his annual poems to her Majesty, 
had the honour of kissing her hand, and met 
with the most gracious reception. 

" Yours, &c." 



Such was the performance,* and such its re- 
ception ; a reception, which, though by no 
means unkind, was yet not in the highest degree 
generous : to chain down the genius of a writer 
to an annual panegpuc, showed in the Queen 
too much desire of hearing her own praises, and 
a greater regard to herself than to him on whom 
her bounty was conferred. It was a kind of 
avaricious generosity, by which flattery was ra- 
ther purchased than genius rewarded. 

Mrs. Oldfield had formerly given him the 
same allowance with much more heroic inten- 
tion : she had no other view than to enable him 
to prosecute his studies, and to set himself above 
the want of assistance, and was contented with 
doing good without stipulating for encomiums. 

Mr. Savage, however, was not at liberty to 
make exceptions, but was ravished with the fa- 
vours which he had received, and probably yet 
more with those which he was promised : he 
considered himself now as a favourite of the 
Queen, and did not doubt but a few annual 
poems would establish him in some profitable 
employment. 

He therefore assumed the title of Volunteer 
Laureat, not without some reprehensions from 
Cibber, who informed him, that the title of 
Laureat, was a mark of honour conferred by 
the King, from whom all honour is derived, 
and which therefore no man has a right to be- 
stow upon himself; and added, that he might 
with equal propriety style himself a Volunteer 
Lord, or Volunteer Baronet. It cannot be de- 
nied that the remark was just ; but Savage did 
not think any title, which was conferred upon 
Mr. Cibber, so honourable as that the usurpa- 
tion of it could be imputed to him as an in- 
stance of very exorbitant vanity, and therefore 
continued to write under the same title, and re- 
ceived every year the same reward. 

He did not appear to consider these enco- 
miums as tests of his abilities, or as any thing 
more than annual hints to the Queen of he/ 
promise ; or acts of ceremony, by the perfor- 
mance of which he was entitled to his pension ; 
and therefore did not labour them with great 
diligence, or print more than fifty each year, 
except that for some of the last years he regu- 
larly inserted them in " The Gentleman's 
Magazine," by which they were dispersed over 
the kingdom. 

Of some of them he had himself so low au 
; opinion, that he intended to omit them in the 
Collection of Poems, for which he printed pro- 
posals, and solicited subscriptions ; nor can it 
seem strange, that, being confined to the same 
subject, he should be at some times indolentj 
and at others unsuccessful; that he should some- 



* This poem is inserted in the late Collection. 



234 



SAVAGE. 



times delay a disagreeable task till it was too 
late to perform it well ; or that he should some- 
times repeat the same sentiment on the same 
occasion, or at others be misled by an attempt 
after novelty to forced conceptions and far- 
fetched images. 

He wrote indeed with a double intention, 
which supplied him with some variety ; for his 
business was, to praise the Queen for the fa- 
vours which he had received, and to complain 
to her of the delay of those which she had pro- 
mised : in some of his pieces, therefore, grati- 
tude is predominant, and in some discontent; 
in some he represents himself as happy in her 
patronage; and, in others, as disconsolate to 
find himself neglected. 

Her promise, like other promises made to this 
unfortunate man, was never performed, though 
he took sufficient care that it should not be 
forgotten. The publication of his " Volunteer 
Laureat" procured him no other reward than a 
regular remittance of fifty pounds. 

He was not so depressed by his disappoint- 
ments as to neglect any opportunity that was 
offered of advancing his interest. When the 
Princess Anne was married, he wrote a poem* 
upon her departure, " only," as he declared, 
" because it was expected from him," and he 
was not willing to bar his own prospects by any 
appearance of neglect. 

He never mentioned any advantage gained by 
this poem, or any regard that was paid to it; 
and therefore it is likely that it was considered 
at court as an act of duty, to which he was 
obliged by his dependance, and which it was 
therefore not necessary to reward by any new 
favour : or perhaps the Queen really intended 
his advancement, and therefore thought it su- 
perfluous to lavish presents upon a man whom 
she intended to establish for life. 

About this time not only his hopes were 
in danger of being frustrated, but his pension 
likewise of being obstructed, by an accidental 
calumny. The writer of " The Daily Cou- 
rant," a paper then published under the direc- 
tion of the ministry, charged him with a crime, 
which, though not very great in itself, would 
have been remarkably invidious in him, and 
might very justly have incensed the Queen 
against him. He was accused by name of in- 
fluencing elections against the court, by appear- 
ing at the head of a tory mob ; nor did the ac- 
cuser fail to aggravate his crime, by represent- 
ing it as the effect of the most atrocious ingra- 
titude, and a kind of rebellion against the 
Queen, who had first preserved him from an 
infamous death, and afterwards distinguished 
him by her favour, and supported him by her 
charity. The charge, as it was open and con- 



Printed in the lute Collection. 






fident, was likewise by good fortune very parti- 
cular. The place of the transaction was men- 
tioned, and the whole series of the rioter's con- 
duct related. This exactness made Mr. Sa- 
vage's vindication easy ; for he never had in his 
life seen the place which was declared to be the 
scene of his wickedness, nor ever had been pre- 
sent in any town when its representatives were 
chosen. This answer he therefore made haste 
to publish, with all the circumstances necessary 
to make it credible ; and very reasonably de- 
manded that the accusation should be retracted 
in the same paper, that he might no longer suf- 
fer the imputation of sedition and ingratitude. 
This demand was likewise pressed by him in a 
private letter to the author of the paper, who, 
either trusting to the protection of those whose 
defence he had undertaken, or having enter- 
tained some personal malice against Mr. Sa- 
vage, or fearing lest, by retracting so confident 
an assertion, he should impair the credit of hia 
paper, refused to give him that satisfaction. 

Mr. Savage therefore thought- it necessary to 
his own vindication, to prosecute him in the 
King's Bench ; but as he did not find any ill 
effects from the accusation, having sufficiently 
eleared his innocence, he thought any farther 
procedure would have the appearance of re- 
venge ; and therefore willingly dropped it. 

He saw soon afterwards a process commenced 
in the same court against himself, on an infor- 
mation in which he was accused of writing and 
publishing an obscene pamphlet. 

It was always Mr. Savage's desire to be dis- 
tinguished ; and, when any controversy became 
popular, he never wanted some reason for en- 
gaging in it with great ardour, and appearing 
at the head of the party which he had chosen. 
As he was never celebrated for his prudence, he 
had no sooner taken his side, and informed 
himself of the chief topics of the dispute, than 
he took all opportunities of asserting and pro- 
pagating his principles, without much regard to 
his own interest, or any other visible design 
than that of drawing upon himself the atten- 
tion of mankind. 

The dispute between the bishop of London 
and the Chancellor is well known to have been 
for some time the chief topic of political conver- 
sation ; and therefore Mr. Savage, in pursuance 
of his character, endeavoured to become conspi- 
cuous among the controvertists with which 
every coffee-house was filled on that occasion. 
He was an indefatigable opposer of all the claims 
of ecclesiastical power, though he did not know 
on what they were founded ; and was therefore 
no friend to the Bishop of London. But he 
had another reason for appearing as a warm 
advocate for Dr. Rundle ; for he was the friend 
of Mr. Foster and Mr. Thomson, who were 
the friends of Mr. Savage. 

Thus remote was his interest in the question, 



SAVAGE. 



235 



which, however, as he imagined, concerned him 
so nearly, that it was not sufficient to harangue 
and dispute, but necessary likewise to write 
upon it. 

He therefore engaged with great ardour in a 
new poem, called by him, " The Progress of a 
Divine;" in which he conducts a profligate 
priest, by all the gradations of wickedness, from 
ft poor curacy in the country to the highest pre- 
ferments of the church ; and describes, with 
that humour which was natural to him, and 
that knowledge which was extended to all the 
diversities of human life, his behaviour in every 
station ; and insinuates, that this priest, thus 
accomplished, found at last a patron in the 
Bishop of London. 

When he was asked by one of his friends, on 
what pretence he could charge the Bishop with 
such an action; he had no more to say than 
that he had only inverted the accusation : and 
that be thought it reasonable to believe, that he 
who obstructed the rise of a good man without 
reason, would for bad reasons promote the ex- 
altation of a villain. 

The clergy were universally provoked by this 
satire ; and Savage, who, as was his constant I 
practice, had set his name to his performance, j 
was censured in " The Weekly Miscellany"* 
— - i 

* A short satire was likewise published in the 
same paper, in which were the following lines : 

For cruel murder doom'd to hempen death, 
Savage by royal grace prolong'd his breath. 
Well might you think he spent his future years 
In prayer, and fasting, and repentant tears. 
'•' -, But, O vain hope I" — the truly Savage cries, 
" Priests, and their slavish doctrines I despise. 

Shall 1 

Who, by free-thinking to free action fired, 

In midnight brawls a deathless name acquired, 

Now stoop to learn of ecclesiastic men ? 

—No, arm'd with rhyme, at priests I'll take my aim, 
Though prudence bids me murder but their fame." 

Weekly MucellJhy. 

An answer was published in " The Gentleman's 
Magazine," written by an unknown hand, from which 
the following lines are selected : 

Transform'd by thoughtless rage, and midnight wine, 

From malice free, and push'd without design; 

In equal brawl if Savage lung'd a thrust, 

And brought the youth a victim to the dust ; 

So strong the hand of accident appears, 

The royal hand from guilt and vengeance clears. 

Instead of wasting " all thy future years, 
Savage, in prayer and vain repenting tears," 
Exert thy pen to mend a vicious age, 
To curb the priest, and sink his high-church rage; 
To show what frauds the holy vestments hide, 
The nests of avarice, lust, and pedant pride : 
Then change the scene, let merit brightly shine, 
And round the patriot twist the wreath divine ;. 
The heavenly guide deliver down to fame ; 
In well-tuned Jays transmit a Foster's name ; 
Touch every passion with harmonious art, 
Exalt the genius and correct the heart. 
Thus future limes shall reyal grace extol ; 
Thus polish'd lines thy present fame "enrol. 

But grant 

Maliciously that Savage plunged the steel, 

And made the youth its shining vengeance feel ; 



with* severity which he did not seem inclined to 
forget. 

But a return of invective was not thought a 
sufficient punishment. The court of King's 
Bench was therefore moved against him ; and 
he was obliged to return an answer to a charge 
of obscenity. It was urged in his defence, that 
obscenity was criminal when it was intended to 
promote the practice of vice ; but that Mr. Sa- 
vage had only introduced obscene ideas, with 
the view of exposing them to detestation, and of 
amending the age by showing the deformity of 
wickedness. This plea was admitted ; and Sir 
Philip Yorke, who then presided in that court, 
dismissed the information with encomiums up- 
on 'the purity and excellence of Mr. Savage's 
writings. The prosecution, however, answered 
in some measure the purpose of those by whom 
it was set on foot ; for Mr. Savage was so far 
intimidated by it, that when the edition of his 
poem was sold, he did not venture to reprint it; 
so that it was in a short time forgotten, or for- 
gotten by all but those whom it offended. 

It is said that some endeavours were used to 
incense the Queen against him : but he found 
advocates to obviate at least part of their effect ; 
for, though he was never advanced, be still con- 
tinued to receive his pension. 

This poem drew mere infamy upon him than 
any incident of his life ; and, as his conduct 
cannot be vindicated, it is proper to secure his 
memory from reproach, by informing those 
whom he made his enemies, that he never in- 
tended to repeat the provocation ; and that, 
though whenever he thought he had any reason 
to complain of the clergy, he used to threaten 
them with a new edition of " The Progress of 
a Divine," it was his calm and settled resolu- 
tion to suppress it for ever. 

He once intended to have made a better re- 
paration for the folly or injustice with which 
he might be charged, by writing another poem 
called " The Progress of a Free-thinker," 
whom he intended to lead through all the stages 
of vice and folly, to convert him from virtue to 
wickedness, and from religion to infidelity, by 
all the modish sophistry used for that purpose ; 
and at last to dismiss him by his own hand into 
the other world. 

That he did not execute this design is a real 
loss to mankind; for he was too well acquainted 
with all the scenes of debauchery to have failed 
in his representations of them, and too zealous 
for virtue not to have represented them in such 
a manner as should expose them either to ridi- 
cule or detestation. 

But this plan, was, like others, formed and 



My soul abhors the act, the roan detests, 
But more the bigotry in priestly breasts.. 

Gentleman's Magazine, May 1735.- 



236 



SAVAGE. 



laid aside till the vigour of liis imagination was | 
6pent, and the effervescence of invention had ' 
subsided ; but soon gave way to some other de- 
sign, which pleased by its novelty for awhile, 
and then was neglected like the former. 

He was still in his usual exigencies, having 
no certain support but the pension allowed him 
by the Queen, which, though it might have kept 
an exact economist from want, was very far | 
from being sufficient for Mr. Savage, who had i 
never been accustomed to dismiss any of his [ 
appetites without the gratification which they 
solicited, and whom nothing but want of money 
withheld from partaking of every pleasure that 
fell within his view. 

His conduct with regard to his pension was 
very particular. No sooner had he changed the 
bill, than he vanished from the sight of all his J 
acquaintance, and lay for some time out of the 
reach of all the inquiries that friendship or cu- 
riosity could make after him. At length he ap- 
peared again, pennyless as before, but never in- 
formed even those whom he seemed to regard 
most, where he had been ; nor was his retreat 
ever discovered. 

This was his constant practice during the 
whole time that he received the pension of the 
Queen : he regularly disappeared and returned. 
He, indeed, affirmed that he retired to study, 
and that the money supported him in solitude 
for many months ; but his friends declared, that 
the short time in which it was spent sufficiently 
confuted his own account of his conduct. 

His politeness and his wit still raised him 
friends, who were desirous of setting him at 
length free from that indigence by which he 
had been hitherto oppressed ; and therefore so- 
licited Sir Robert Walpole in his favour with so 
much earnestness that they obtained a promise 
of the next place that should become vacant, 
not exceeding two hundred pounds a year. This 
promise was made with an uncommon decla- 
ration, " that it was not the promise of a 
minister to a petitioner, but of a friend to his 
friend." 

Mr. Savage now concluded himself set at ease 
for ever, and, as he observes in a poem written 
on that incident of his life, trusted and was 
trusted ; but soon found that his confidence was 
ill-grounded, and this friendly promise was not 
inviolable. He spent a long time in solicita- 
tions, and at last despaired and desisted. 

He did not indeed deny, that he had given 
the minister some reason to believe that he 
should not strengthen his own interest by ad- 
vancing him ; for he had taken care to distin- 
guish himself in coffee-houses as an advocate for 
the ministry of the last years of Queen Anne, 
and was always ready to justify the conduct, 
and exalt the character of Lord Eolingbroke, 
whom he mentions with great regard in an 
" Epistle upon Authors," which he wrote 



about that time, but was too wise to publish, 
and of which only some fragments have ap- 
peared, inserted by him in the " Magazine" 
after his retirement. 

To despair was not, however, the character 
of Savage ; when one patronage failed, he had 
recourse to another. The prince was now ex- 
tremely popular, and had very liberally reward- 
ed the merit of some writers whom Mr. Savage 
did not think superior to himself; and therefore 
he resolved to address a poem to him. 

For this purpose he made choice of a subject 
which could regard only persons of the highest 
rank and greatest affluence, and which was 
therefore proper for a poem intended to procure 
the patronage of a prince ; and having retired 
for some time to Richmond, that he might pro- 
secute his design in full tranquillity, without 
the temptations of pleasure, or the solicitations 
of creditors by which his meditations were in 
equal danger of being disconcerted, he produced 
a poem " On Public Spirit, with regard to 
Public Works." 

The plan of this poem is very extensive, and 
comprises a multitude of topics, each of which 
might furnish matter sufficient for a long per- 
formance, and of which some have already em- 
ployed more eminent writers ; but as he was 
perhaps not fully acquainted with the whole 
extent of his own design, and was writing to 
obtain a supply of wants too pressing to admit 
of long or accurate inquiries, he passes negli- 
gently over many public works, which, even in 
his own opinion, deserved to be more elaborately 
treated. 

But, though he may sometimes disappoint his 
reader by transient touches upon these subjects, 
which have often been considered, and therefore 
naturally raise expectations, he must be allowed 
amply to compensate his omissions, by expatiat- 
ing, in the conclusion of his work, upon a kind 
of beneficence not yet celebrated by any eminent 
poet, though it now appears more susceptible of 
embeDishments, more adapted to exalt the ideas, 
and affect the passions, than many of those 
which have hitherto been thought most worthy 
of the ornaments of verse. The settlement of 
colonies in uninhabited countries, the establish- 
ment of those in security whose misfortunes 
have made their own country no longer pleas- 
ing or safe, the acquisition of property without 
injury to any, the appropriation of the waste 
and luxuriant bounties of nature, and the en- 
joyment of those gifts which Heaven has scat- 
tered upon the regions uncultivated and unoc- 
cupied, cannot be considered without giving rise 
to a great number of pleasing ideas, and be- 
wildering the imagination in delightful pros- 
pects ; and, therefore, whatever speculations 
they may produce in those who have confined 
themselves to political studies, naturally fixed 
the attention, and excited the applause of a 



SAVAGE. 



237 



poet. The politician, when he considers men 
driven into other countries for shelter, and 
obliged to retire to forests and deserts, and 
pass their lives, and fix their posterity, in the 
remotest corners of the world, to avoid those 
hardships which they suffer or fear in their na- 
tive place, may very properly inquire, why the 
legislature does not provide a remedy for these 
miseries, rather than encourage an escape from 
them. He may conclude that the flight of 
every honest man is a loss to the community ; 
that those who are unhappy without guilt ought 
to be relieved ; and the life which is overbur- 
dened by accidental calamities set at ease by 
the care of the public ; and that those who have 
by misconduct forfeited their claim to favour, 
ought rather to be made useful to the society 
which they have, injured, than be driven from 
it. But the poet is employed in a more pleas- 
ing undertaking than that of proposing laws 
which, however just or expedient, will never 
be made ; or endeavouring to reduce to rational 
schemes of government societies which were 
formed by chance, and are conducted by the 
private passions of those who preside in them. 
He guides the unhappy fugitive, from want 
and persecution, to plenty, quiet and security, 
iwid seats himself in scenes of peaceful solitude, 
end undisturbed peace. 

Savage has not forgotten, amidst the pleasing 
centiments which this prospect of retirement sug- 
gested to him, to censure those crimes which have 
been generally committed by the discoverers of 
new regions, and to expose the enormous wicked- 
ness of making war upon barbarous nations be- 
cause they cannot resist, and of invading countries 
because they are fruitful ; of extending naviga- 
tion only to propagate vice, and of visiting dis- 
tant lands only to lay them waste. He has 
asserted the natural equality of mankind, and 
endeavoured to suppress that pride whiclj in- 
clines men to imagine, that right is the conse- 
quence of power. 

His description of the various miseries which j 
force men to seek for refuge in distant countries, 
affords another instance of his proficiency in 
the important and extensive study of human 
life ; and the tenderness with which he recounts 
them, another proof of his humanity and bene- 
volence. 

It is observable that the close of this poem ' 
discovers a change which experience had made 
in Mr. Savage's opinions. In a poem written 
by him in his youth, and published in his Mis- 
cellanies, he declares his contempt of the con- 
tracted views and narrow prospects of the mid- j 
die state of life, and declares his resolution ei- I 
ther to tower like the cedar, or be trampled like 
the shrub ; but in this poem, though addressed 
to a prince, he mentions this state of life, as 
comprising those who ought most to attract re- 
gard, those who merit most the confidence of 



power and the familiarity of greatness ; an 1, 
accidentally mentioning this passage to one of 
his friends, declared, that in his opinion all the 
virtue of mankind was comprehended iu that 
state. 

In describing villas and gardens he did not 
omit to condemn that absurd custom which 
prevails among the English, of permitting ser- 
vants to receive money from strangers for the 
entertainment that they receive, and therefore 
inserted in his poem these lines : 

But what the flowering pride of gardens rare, 

However royal, or however fair, 

If gates, which to access should still give way, 

Ope but, like Peter's paradise, for pay ; 

If perquisited varlets frequent stand, 

And each new walk must a new tax demand ; 

What foreign eye but with contempt surveys ? 

What muse shall from oblivion snatch their praise f 

But before the publication of his performance 
he recollected that the Queen allowed her gar- 
den and cave at Richmond to be shown for 
money ; and that she so openly countenanced the 
practice, that she had bestowed the privilege of 
showing them as a place of profit on a man, 
whose merit she valued herself upon rewarding, 
though she gave him only the liberty of disgrac- 
ing his country. 

He therefore thought, with more prudence 
than was often exerted by him, that the publi- 
cation of these lines might be officiously repre- 
sented as an insult upon the Queen, to whom 
he owed his life and his subsistence ; and that 
the propriety of his observation would be no 
security against the censures which the unsea- 
sonableness of it might draw upon him : he 
therefore suppressed the passage in the first edi- 
tion, but after the Queen's death thought the 
same caution no longer necessary, and restored 
it to the proper place. 

The poem was, therefore, published without 
any political faults, and inscribed to the Prince; 
but Mr. Savage, having no friend upon whom 
he could prevail to present it to him, had no 
other method of attracting his observation than 
the publication of frequent advertisements, and 
therefore received no reward from his patron, 
however generous on other occasions. 

This disappointment he never mentioned 
without indignation, being by some means or 
other confident that the Prince was not igno- 
rant of his address to him; and insinuated, 
that if any advances in popularity could have 
been made by distinguishing him, he had not 
written without notice, or without reward. 

He was once inclined to have presented his 
poem in person, and sent to the printer for a 
copy with that design ; but either his opinion 
changed, or his resolution deserted him, and he 
continued to resent neglect without attempting 
to force himself into regard. 
Hh 



238 



SAVAGE. 



Nor was the public much more favourable 
than his patron; for only seventy- two were 
6old, though the performance was much com- 
mended by some whose judgment in that kind 
of writing is generally allowed. But Savage 
easily reconciled himself to mankind, without 
mputing any defect to his work, by observing 
that his poem was unluckily published two days 
after the prorogation of the parliament, and by 
consequence at a time when all those who could 
be expected to regard it were in the hurry of 
preparing for their departure, or engaged in 
taking leave of others upon their dismission 
from public affairs. 

It must be however allowed, in justification 
of the public, that this performance is not the 
most excellent of Mr. Savage's works; and 
that, though it cannot be denied to contain 
many striking sentiments, majestic lines, and 
just observations, it is in general not sufficiently 
polished in the language, or enlivened in the 
imagery, or digested in the plan. 

Thus his poem contributed nothing to the al- 
leviation of his poverty, which was such as very 
few could have supported with equal patience ; 
but to which it must likewise be confessed, that 
few would have been exposed who received 
punctually fifty pounds a year ; a salary which, 
though by no means equal to the demands of 
vanity and luxury, is yet found sufficient to 
support families above want, and was undoubt- 
edly more than the necessities of life require. 

But no sooner had he received his pension, 
than he withdrew to his darling privacy, from 
which he returned in a short time to his former 
distress, and for some part of the year generally 
lived by chance, eating only when he was in- 
vited to the tables of his acquaintances, from 
which the meanness of his dress often excluded 
him, when the politeness and variety of his 
conversation would have been thought a suf- 
ficient recompence for his entertainment. 

He lodged as much by accident as he dined, 
and passed the night sometimes in mean houses, 
which are set open at night to any casual wan- 
derers, sometimes in cellars among the riot and 
filth of the meanest and most profligate of the 
rabble : and sometimes, when he had not money 
to support even the expenses of these receptacles, 
walked about the streets till he was weary, and 
lay down in the summer upon a bulk, or in the 
winter, with his associates in poverty, among 
the ashes of a glass-house. 

In this manner were passed those days and 
those nights which nature had enabled him to 
have employed in elevated speculations, useful 
studies, or pleasing conversation. On a bulk, 
in a cellai-, or in a glass-house, among thieves 
and beggars, was to be found the Author of 
" The Wanderer," the man of exalted senti- 
ments, extensive views, and curious observa- 
tions • the man whose remarks on life might 



have assisted the statesman, "whose ideas of vir- 
tue might have enlightened the moralist, whose 
eloquence might have influenced senates, and 
whose delicacy might have polished courts. 

It cannot but be imagined that such necessi- 
ties might sometimes force him upon disreput- 
able practices ; and it is probable that these 
lines in " The Wanderer" were occasioned by 
his reflections on his conduct : 

Though misery leads to happiness, and truth, 
Unequal to the load this languid youth, 
(0, let none censure, if, untried by grief, 
If, amidst wo, untempted by relief) 
He stoop'd reluctant to low arts of shame, 
Which then, even then, he scorn'd, and blush'd to 
name. 

Whoever was acquainted with him was cer- 
tain to be solicited for small sums, which the 
frequency oi the request made in time consider- 
able : and he was therefore quickly shunned by 
those who were become familiar enough to ba 
trusted with his necessities; but his rambling 
manner of life, and constant appearance at 
houses of public resort, always procured him a 
new succession of friends, whose kindness had 
not been exhausted by repeated requests; so 
that he was seldom absolutely without re- 
sources, but had in his utmost exigences this 
comfort, that he always imagined himself sure 
of speedy relief. 

It was observed, that he always asked favours 
of this kind without the least submission or 
apparent consciousness of dependance, and that 
he did not seem to look upon a compliance with 
his request as an obligation that deserved any 
extraordinary acknowledgments ; but a refusal 
was resented by him as an affront, or com- 
plained of as an injury ; nor did he readily re- 
concile himself to those who either denied to 
lend, or gave him afterwards any intimation 
that they expected to be repaid. 

He was sometimes so far compassioned by 
those who knew both his merit and distresses, 
that they received him into their families, but 
they soon discovered him to be a very incommo- 
dious inmate ; for, being always accustomed to 
an irregular manner of life, he could not con- 
fine himself to any stated hours, or pay any re- 
gard to the rules of a family, but would prolong 
his conversation till midnight, without consider- 
ing that business might require his friend's ap- 
plication in the morning; and, when he had 
persuaded himself to retire to bed, was not 
without equal difficulty called up to dinner : it 
was therefore impossible to pay him any dis- 
tinction without the entire subversion of all 
economy; a kind of establishment which, 
wherever he went, he always appeared ambi- 
tious to overthrow. 

It must, therefore, be acknowledged, in justi- 
fication of mankind, that it was not always by 



SAVAGE. 



239 



the negligence or coldness of his friends that 
Savage was distressed, but because it was in 
reality very difficult to preserve him long in a 
state of ease. To supply him with money was 
a hopeless attempt ; for no sooner did he see 
himself master of a sum sufficient to set him 
free from care for a day, than he became profuse 
and luxurious. When once he had entered a 
tavern, or engaged in a scheme of pleasure, he 
never retired till want of money obliged him to 
some new expedient. If he was entertained in 
a family, nothing was any longer to be regarded 
there but amusements and jollity ; wherever 
Savage entered, he immediately expected that 
order and business should fly before him, that 
all should thenceforward be left to hazard, and 
that no dull principle of domestic management 
should be opposed to his inclination, or intrude 
upon his gayety. 

His distresses, however afflictive, never de- 
jected him ; in his lowest state he wanted not 
spirit to assert the natural dignity of wit, and 
was always ready to repress that insolence which 
the superiority of fortune incited, and to tram- 
ple on that reputation which rose upon any 
other basis than that of merit; he never ad- 
mitted any gross familiarities, or submitted to 
be treated otherwise than as an equal. Once, 
when he was without lodging, meat, or clothes, 
one of his friends, a man indeed not remarkable 
for moderation in his prosperity, left a message, 
that he desired to see him about nine in the 
morning. Savage knew that his intention was 
to assist him ; but was very much disgusted 
that he should presume to pi'escribe the hour of 
his attendance, and, I believe, refused to visit 
him, and rejected his kindness. 

The same invincible temper, whether firmness 
or obstinacy, appeared in his conduct to the 
Lord Tyrconnel, from whom he very frequently 
demanded, that the allowance which was once 
paid him should be restored, but with whom 
he never appeared to entertain for a moment 
the thought of soliciting a reconciliation, and 
whom he treated at once with all the haughti- 
ness of superiority, and all the bitterness of re- 
sentment. He wrote to him, not in a style of 
supplication or respect, but of reproach, menace, 
and contempt ; and appeared determined, if he 
ever regained his allowance, to hold it only by 
the right of conquest. 

As many more can discover that a man is 
richer than that he is wiser than themselves, su- 
periority of understanding is not so readily ac- 
knowledged as that of fortune; nor is that 
haughtiness which the consciousness of great 
abilities incites borne with the same submission 
as the tyranny of affluence ; and therefore Sa- 
vage, by asserting his chim to deference and re- 
gard, and by treating those with contempt 
whom better fortune animated to rebel against 
him, did not fail to raise a great number of ene- 



mies in the different classes of mankind. Those 
who thought themselves raised above him by 
the advantages of riches, hated him because they 
found no protection from the petulance of his 
wit. Those who were esteemed for their writ- 
ings feared him as a critic, and maligned him 
as a rival ; and almost all the smaller wits were 
his professed enemies. 

Among these Mr. Miller so far indulged his 
resentment as to introduce him in a farce, and 
direct him to be personated on the stage, in a 
dress like that which he then wore ; a mean in- 
sult, which only insinuated that Savage had but 
one coat, and which was therefore despised by 
him rather than resented ; for, though he wrote 
a lampoon against Miller, he never printed it • 
and as no other person ought to prosecute that 
revenge from which the person who was injured 
desisted, I shall not preserve what Mr. Savage 
suppressed; of which the publication would 
indeed have been a punishment too severe for so 
impotent an assault. 

The great hardships of poverty were to Sa- 
vage not the want of lodging or of food, but the 
neglect and contempt which it drew upon him 
He complained that, as his affairs grew desper- 
ate, he found his reputation for capacity visibly 
decline ; that his opinion in questions of criti- 
cism was no longer regarded, when his coat was 
out of fashion ; and that those who, in the in- 
terval of his prosperity, were always encourag- 
ing him to great undertakings by encomiums on 
his genius and assurances of success, now re- 
ceived any mention of his design with coldness, 
thought that the subjects on which he proposed 
to write were very difficult, and were ready to 
inform him, that the event of a poem was un- 
certain, that an author ought to employ much 
time in the consideration of his plan, and not 
presume to sit down to write in confidence of 
a few cursory ideas, and a superficial know- 
ledge ; difficulties were started on all sides, and 
he was no longer qualified for any performance 
but " The Volunteer Laureat." 

Yet even this kind of contempt never de- 
pressed him ; for he always preserved a steady 
confidence in his own capacity, and belieA-ed 
nothing above his reach which he should at any 
time earnestly endeavour to attain. He formed 
schemes of the same kind with regard to know- 
ledge and to fortune, and flattering himself with 
advances to be made in science, as with riches, 
to be enjoyed in some distant period of his life. 
For the acquisition of knowledge he was indeed 
far better qualified than for that of riches ; foi 
he was naturally inquisitive, and desirous o\ 
the conversation of those from whom any in- 
formation was to be obtained, but by no means 
solicitous to improve those opportunities that 
were sometimes offered of raising his fortune; 
and he was remarkably retentive of his ideas, 
which, when cnce he was in possession oJ 



240 



SAVAGE. 



them, rarely forsook him— a quality which 
could never be communicated to his money. 

While he was thus wearing out his life in ex- 
pectation that the Queen would some time re- 
collect her promise, he had recourse to the usual 
practice of writers, and published proposals for 
printing his works by subscription, to which he 
was encouraged by the success of many who 
had not a better right to the favour of the 
public ; but, whatever was the reason, he did 
not find the world equally inclined to favour 
him ; and he observed, with some discontent, 
that, though he offered his works at half-a- 
guinea, he was able to procure but a small num- 
ber in comparison with those who subscribed 
twice as much to Duck. 

Nor was it without indignation that he saw 
his proposals neglected by the Queen, who pa- 
tronized Mr. Duck's with uncommon ardour, 
and incited a competition among those who at- " 
tended the court, who should most promote his 
interest, and who should first offer a subscrip- 
tion. This was a distinction to which Mr. 
Savage made no scruple of asserting, that his 
birth, his misfortunes, and his genius, gave a 
fairer title than could be pleaded by him on 
whom it was conferred. 

Savage's applications were, however, not uni- 
versally unsuccessful ; for some of the nobility 
countenanced his design, encouraged his propo- 
sals, and subscribed with great liberality. He 
related of the Duke of Chandos particularly, 
that, upon receiving his proposals, he sent him 
ten guineas. 

But the money which his subscriptions af- 
forded him was not less volatile than that which 
he received from his other schemes : whenever 
a subscription was paid him, he went to a ta- 
vern ; and, as money so collected is necessarily 
received in small sums, he was never able to 
send his poems to the press, but for many years 
continued his solicitation, and squandered what- 
ever he obtained. 

This project of printing his works was fre- 
quently revived; and as his proposals grew ob- 
solete, new ones were printed with fresher 
dates. To form schemes for the publication, 
was one of his favourite amusements; nor was 
he ever more at ease than when, with any friend 
who readily fell in with his schemes, he was 
adjusting the print, forming the advertisements, 
and regulating the dispersion of his new edi- 
tion, which he really intended some time to 
publish, and which, as long as experience had 
shown him the impossibility of printing the vo- 
lume together, he at last determined to divide 
into weekly or monthly numbers, that the pro- 
fits of the first might supply the expenses of 
the next. 

Thus he spent his time in mean expedients 
and tormenting suspense, living for the greatest 



part in the fear of prosecutions from his credi- 
tors, and consequently skulking in obscure parts 
of the town, of which he was no stranger to 
the remotest corners. But wherever he came, 
his address secured him friends, whom his ne- 
cessities soon alienated : so that he had, perhaps, 
a more numerous acquaintance than any man 
ever before attained, there being scarcely any 
person eminent on any account to whom he 
was not known, or whose character he was not 
in some degree able to delineate. 

To the acquisition of this extensive acquain- 
tance every circumstance of his life contributed. 
He excelled in the arts of conversation, and 
therefore willingly practised them. He had 
seldom any home, or even a lodging in which 
he could be private ; and therefore was driven 
into public-houses for the common conveniences 
of life and supports of nature. He was always 
ready to comply with every invitation, having no 
employment to withhold him, and often no money 
to provide for himself; and by dining with one 
company, he never failed of obtaining an intro- 
duction into another. 

Thus dissipated was his life, and thus casual 
his subsistence ; yet did not the distraction of 
his views hinder him from reflection, nor the 
uncertainty of his condition depress his gayety. 
When he had wandered about without any for- 
tunate adventure by which he was led into a 
tavern, he sometimes retired into the fields, and 
was able to employ his mind in study, or amuse 
it with pleasing imaginations ; and seldom ap- 
peared to be melancholy, but when some sudden 
misfortune had fallen upon him ; and even then 
in a few moments he would disentangle himself 
from his perplexity, adopt the subject of con- 
versation, and apply his mind wholly to the 
objects that others presented to it. This life, 
unhappy as it may be already imagined, was 
yet embittered, in 1 738, with new calamities. 
The death of the Queen deprived him of all the 
prospects of preferment with which he so long 
entertained his imagination ; and, as Sir Robert 
Walpole had before given him reason to be- 
lieve that he never intended the performance 
of his promise, he was now abandoned again 
to fortune. 

He was, however, at that time, supported by 
a friend ; and as it was not his custom to look 
out for distant calamities, or to feel any other 
pain than that which forced itself upon his 
senses, he was not much afflicted at his loss, 
and perhaps comforted himself that his pension 
would be now continued without the annual 
tribute of a panegyric. 

Another expectation contributed likewise to 
support him : he had taken the resolution to 
write a second tragedy upon the story of Sir 
Thomas Overbury, in which he preserved a 
few lines of his former play, but made a total 



SAVAGE. 



241 



alteration of the plan, added new incidents, and 
introduced new characters ; so that it was a new 
tragedy, not a revival of the former. 

Many of his friends blamed him for not mak- 
ing choice of another subject ; but, in vindica- 
tion of himself, he asserted, that it was not 
easy to find a better ; and that he thought it his 
interest to extinguish the memory of the first 
tragedy, which he could only do by writing one 
less defective upon the same story ; by which 
he should entirely defeat the artifice of the 
booksellers, who, after the death of any author 
of reputation, are always industrious to swell 
his works, by uniting his worst productions 
with his best. 

In the execution of this scheme, however, he 
proceeded but slowly, and probably only em- 
ployed himself upon it when he could find no 
other amusement ; but he pleased himself with 
counting the profits, and perhaps imagined that 
the theatrical reputation which he was about to 
acquire, would be equivalent to all that he had 
lost by the death of his patroness. 

He did not, in confidence of his approaching 
riches, neglect the measures proper to secure the 
continuance of his pension, though some of his 
favourers thought him culpable for omitting to 
write on her death; but on her birth-day next 
year, he gave a proof of the solidity of his judg- 
ment, and the power of his genius. He knew 
that the track of elegy had been so long beaten, 
that it was impossible to travel in it without 
treading in the footsteps of those who had gone 
before him ; and that therefore it was necessary, 
that he might distinguish himself from the herd 
of encomiasts, to find out some new walls of 
funeral panegyric. 

This difficult task he performed in such a 
manner, that his poem may be justly ranked 
among the best pieces that the death of princes 
has produced. By transferring the mention of 
her death to her birth-day, he has formed a 
happy combination of topics, which any other 
man would have thought it very difficult to con- 
nect in one view, but which he has united in 
such a manner, that the relation between them 
appears natural; and it may be justly said, 
that what no other man would have thought 
on, it now appears scarcely possible for any man 
to miss. 

The beauty of this peculiar combination of 
images is so masterly, that it is sufficient to set 
this poem above censure; and therefore it is 
not necessary to mention many other delicate 
touches which may be found in it, and which 
would deservedly be admired in any other per- 
formance. 

To these proofs of his genius may be added, 
from the same poem, an instance of his pru- 
dence, an excellence for which he was not so 
often distinguished j he does not forget to re- 



mind the king, in the most delicate and artful 
manner of continuing his pension. 

With regard to the success of this address, he 
was for some time in suspense, but was in no 
great degree solicitous about it ; and continued 
his labour upon his new tragedy with great 
tranquillity, till the friend who had for a con- 
siderable time supported him, removing his 
family to another place, took occasion to dismiss 
him. It then became necessary to inquire 
more diligently what was determined in his 
affair, having reason to suspect that no great 
favour was intended him, because he had not 
received his pension at the usual time. 

It is said, that he did not take those methods 
of retrieving his interest, which Avere most 
likely to succeed ; and some of those who were 
employed in the Exchequer, cautioned him 
against too much violence in his proceedings ; 
but Mr. Savage, who seldom regulated his con- 
duct by the advice of others, gave way to his 
passion, and demanded of Sir Robert Walpole, 
at his levee, the reason of the distinction that 
was made between him and the other pensioners 
of the Queen, with a degree of roughness, 
which perhaps determined him to withdraw 
what had been only delayed. 

Whatever was the crime of which he was ac- 
cused or suspected, and whatever influence was 
employed against him, he received soon after an 
account that took from him all hopes of regain- 
ing his pension ; and he had now no prospect 
of subsistence but from his play, and he knew 
no way of living for the time required to fin- 
ish it. 

So peculiar were the misfortunes of this man, 
deprived of an estate and title by a particular 
law, exposed and abandoned by a mother, de- 
frauded by a mother of a fortune which his fa- 
ther had allotted him, he entered the world 
without a friend ; and though his abilities 
forced themselves into esteem and reputation, 
he was never able to obtain any real advantage ; 
and whatever prospects arose, were always in- 
tercepted as he began to approach them. The 
King's intentions in his favour were frustrated ; 
his dedication to the Prince, whose generosity 
on every other occasion was eminent, procured 
him no reward ; Sir Robert Walpole, who 
valued himself upon keeping his promise to 
others, broke it to him without regret ; and the 
bounty of the Queen was, after her death, with- 
drawn from him, and from him only. 

Such were his misfortunes, which yet he bore, 
not only with decency, but with cheerfulness ; 
nor was his gayety clouded even by his last dis- 
appointments, though he was in a short time 
reduced to the lowest degree of distress, and 
often wanted both lodging and food. At this 
time he gave another instance of the insur- 
mountable obstinacy of his spirit : his clothes 



242 



SAVAGE. 



were worn out, and he received notice, that at 
a coffee house some clothes and linen were left 
for him : the person who sent them did not, I 
believe, inform him to whom he was to be 
obliged, that he might spare the perplexity of 
acknowledging the benefit; but though the offer 
was so far generous, it was made with some 
neglect of ceremonies, which Mr. Savage so 
much resented, that he refused the present, and 
declined to enter the house till the clothes that 
had been designed for him were taken away. 

His distress was now publicly known, and 
his friends, therefore, thought it proper to con- 
cert some measures for his relief; and one of 
them wrote a letter to him, in which he ex- 
pressed his concern " for the miserable with- 
drawing of his pension;" and gave him hopes, 
that in a short time he should find himself sup- 
plied with a competence, without any depecd- 
ance "on those little creatures which we are 
pleased to call the great." 

The scheme proposed for this happy and inde- 
pendent subsistence was, that he slrould retire 
into Wales, and receive an allowance of fifty 
pounds a year, to be raised by a subscription, 
on which he was to live privately in a cheap 
place, without aspiring any more to affluence, 
or having any farther care of reputation. 

This offer Mr. Savage gladly accepted, though 
with intentions very different from those of his 
friends ; for they proposed that he should con- 
tinue an exile from London for ever, and spend 
all the remaining part of his life at Swansea ; j 
but he designed only to take the opportunity, 
which their scheme offered him, of retreating 
for a short time that he might prepare his play ! 
for the stage, and his other works for the press, \ 
and then return to London to exhibit his tra- I 
gedy, and live upon the profits of his own 
labour. 

With regard to his works, he proposed very 
great improvements, which would have required 
much time or great application ; and, when he 
had finished them, he designed to do justice to 
his subscribers, by publishing them according to 
his proposals. 

As he was ready to entertain himself with 
future pleasures, he had planned out a scheme 
of life for the country, of which he had no 
knowledge but from pastorals and songs. He 
imagined that he should be transported to scenes 
of flowery felicity, like those which one poet | 
has reflected to another ; and had projected a ! 
perpetual round of innocent pleasures, of which l 
he suspected no interruption from pride, or ig- 
norance, or brutality. 

With these expectations he was so enchanted, 
that when he was once gently reproached by a 
friend for submittiug to live upon a subscrip- 
tion, and advised rather by a resolute exertion 
of his abilities to support himself, he could not 
bear to debar himself from the happiness which ' 



was to be found in the calm of a cottage, or lose 
the opportunity of listening, without intermis- 
sion, to the melody of the nightingale, which 
he believed was to be heard from every bramble, 
and which he did not fail to mention as a 
very important part of the happiness of a coun- 
try life. 

While this scheme was ripening, his friends 
directed him to take a lodging in the liberties or 
the Fleet, that he might be secure from his cre- 
ditors ; and sent him every Monday a guinea, 
which he commonly spent before the next 
morning, and trusted after his usual manner, 
the remaining part of the week to the bounty 
of fortune. 

He now began very sensibly to feel the mise- 
ries of dependance. Those by whom he was to 
be supported began to prescribe to him with an 
air of authority, which he knew not how de- 
cently to resent, nor patiently to bear ; and he 
soon discovered, from the conduct of most of 
his subscribers, that he was yet in the hands of 
" little creatures." 

Of the insolence that he was obliged to suffer 
he gave many instances, of which none appeared 
to raise his indignation to a greater height, than 
the method which was taken of furnishing him 
with clothes. Instead of consulting him, and 
allowing him to send a tailor his orders for 
what they thought proper to allow him, they 
proposed to send for a tailor to take his mea- 
sure, and then to consult how they should equip 
him. 

This treatment was not very delicate, nor was 
it such as Savage's humanity would have sug- 
gested to him on a like occasion ; but it had 
scarcely deserved mention, had it not, by affect- 
ing him in an uncommon degree, shown the 
peculiarity of his character. Upon hearing the 
design that was formed, he came to the lodging 
of a friend with the most violent agonies of 
rage ; and, being asked what it could be that 
gave him such disturbance, he replied with the 
utmost vehemence of indignation, " That they 
had sent for a tailor to measure him." 

How the affair ended was never inquired, for 
fear of renewing his uneasiness. It is probable 
that, upon recollection, he submitted with a 
good grace to what he could not avoid, and that 
he discovered no resentment where he had no 
power. 

He was, however, not humbled to implicit 
and universal compliance ; for when the gentle- 
man, who had first informed him of the design 
to support him by a subscription, attempted to 
procure a reconciliation with the Lord Tyr- 
connel, he could by no means be prevailed upon 
to comply with the measures that were pro- 



A letter was written for him* to Sir William 



By Mr. Pope.— Dr. ,T. 



S A V AGE. 



£43 



Lemon, to prevail upon him to interpose his 
good offices with Lord Tyrconnel, in which he 
solicited Sir "William's assistance " for a man 
who really needed it as much as any man could 
well do;" and informed him, that he was retir- | 
ing " for ever, to a place where he should no 
more trouble his relations, friends, or enemies;" | 
he confessed that his passion had betrayed him j 
to some conduct, with regard to Lord Tyrcon- 
nel, for which he could not but heartily ask his i 
pardon ; and as he imagined Lord Tyrconnel's ■ 
passion might yet be so high that he would not j 
" receive a letter from him," begged that Sir j 
William would endeavour to soften him ; and 
expressed his hopes that he would comply with '■ 
his request, and that " so small a relation would | 
not harden his heart against him." 

That any man should presume to dictate a 
letter to him, was not very agreeable to Mr. 
Savage; and therefore he was, before he had 
opened it, not much inclined to approve it. 
But when he read it, he found it contained sen- 
timents entirely opposite to his own, and, as he 
asserted, to the truth, and therefore, instead of 
copying it, wrote his friend a letter full of mas- 
culine resentment and warm expostulations. 
He very justly observed, that the style was too 
supplicatory, and the representation too abject, 
and that he ought at least to have made him 
complain with " the dignity of a gentleman in 
distress." He declared that he would not write 
the paragraph in which he was to ask Lord 
Tyrconnel's pardon ; for, " he despised his par- 
don, and therefore could not heartily, and would 
not hypocritically, ask it." He remarked that 
his friend made a very unreasonable distinction 
between himself and him ; " for," says he, 
" when you mention men of high rank in your 
own character, they are ' those little creatures 
whom we are pleased to call the great;' but 
when you address them in mine, no servility is 
sufficiently humble." He then with great pro- 
priety explained the ill consequences which 
might be expected from such a letter, which his 
relations would print in their own defence, and 
which would for ever be produced as a full an- 
swer to all that he should allege against them ; 
for he always intended to publish a minute ac- 
count of the treatment which he had received. 
It is to be remembered, to the honour of the 
gentleman by whom this letter was drawn up, 
that he yielded to Mr. Savage's reasons, and 
agreed that it ought to be suppressed. 

After many alterations and delays, a subscrip- 
tion was at length raised, which did not amount 
to fifty pounds a year, though twenty were 
paid by one gentleman ;* such was the genero- 
sity of mankind, that what had been done by a. 
player without solicitation, could not now be 



* Mr. Pope.— R ( 



effected by application and interest; and Savage 
had a great number to court and to obey for a 
pension less than that which Mrs. Oldfield paid 
him without exacting any servilities. 

Mr. Savage, however, was satisfied, and 
willing to retire, and was convinced that the 
allowance, though scanty, would be more than 
sufficient for him, being now determined to 
commence a rigid economist, and live according 
to the exactest rules of frugality ; for nothing 
was in his opinion more Contemptible than a 
man, who, when he knew his income, exceeded 
it ; and yet he confessed that instances of such 
folly were too common, and lamented that 
some men were not to be trusted with their 
own money. 

Full of these salutary resolutions, he left Lon- 
don in July 1739, having taken leave with great 
tenderness of his friends, and parted from the 
Author of this narrative with tears in his eyes. 
He was furnished with fifteen guineas, and in- 
formed that they would be sufficient, not only 
for the expense of his journey, but for his sup- 
port in Wales for some time ; and that there re- 
mained but little more of the first collection. 
He promised a strict adherence to his maxims 
of parsimony, and went away in the stage- 
coach ; nor did his friends expect to hear from 
him till he informed them of his arrival at 
Swansea. 

But, when they least expected, arrived a let- 
ter dated the fourteenth day after his departure, 
in which he sent them word, that he was yet 
upon the road, and without money ; and that 
he therefore could not proceed without a remit- 
tance. They then sent him the money that 
was in their hands, with which he was enabled 
to reach Bristol, from whence he was to go to 
Swansea by water. 

At Bristol he found an embargo laid upon the 
shipping, so that he could not immediately ob- 
tain a passage ; and being therefore obliged to 
stay there for some time, he with his usual fe- 
licity ingratiated himself with many of the 
principal inhabitants, was invited to their 
houses, distinguished at their public feasts, and 
treated with a regard that gratified his vanity, 
and therefore easily engaged his affection. 

He began very early after his retirement to 
complain of the conduct of his friends in Lon- 
don, and irritated many of them so much by 
his letters, that they withdrew, however ho- 
nourably, their contributions ; audit is believed 
that little more was paid him tian the twenty 
pounds a year, wh^.di we're allowed him by the 
gentleman who proposed the subscription. 

After seme stay at Bristol he retired to Swan- 
sea, the place originally proposed for his re- 
sidence, -where he lived about a year, very much 
dissatisfied with the diminution of his salary ; 
but contracted, as in other places, acquaintance 
with those who were most distinguished in that 



244 



SAVAGE. 



country, among whom he has celebrated Mr. 
Powel and Mrs. Jones, by some verses which 
he inserted in " The Gentleman's Magazine."* 

Here he completed his tragedy, of which two 
acts were wanting when he left London ; and 
was desirous of coming to town, to bring it up- 
on the stage. This design was very warmly 
opposed ; and he was advised by his chief bene- 
factor, to put it into the hands of Mr. Thomson 
and Mr. Mallet, that it might be fitted for the 
stage, and allow his friends to receive the pro- 
fits, out of which an annual pension should be 
paid him. 

This proposal he rejected with the utmost 
contempt. He was by no means convinced that 
the judgment of those, to whom he was required 
to submit, was superior to his own. He was 
now determined, as he expressed it, to be " no 
longer kept in leading strings," and had no ele- 
vated idea of " his bounty, who proposed to 
pension him out of the profits of his own la- 
bours." 

He attempted in Wales to promote a subscrip- 
tion for his works, and had once hopes of suc- 
cess ; but in a short time afterwards formed a 
resolution of leaving that part of the country, 
to which he thought it not reasonable to be con- 
fined, for the gratification of those who having 
promised him a liberal income, had no sooner 
banished him to a remote corner, than they re- 
duced his allowance to a salary scarcely equal to 
ihe necessities of life. 

His resentment of this treatment, which, in 
his own opinion at least, he had not deserved, 
was such, that he broke off all correspondence 
with most of his contributors, and appeared to 
consider them as persecutors and oppressors ; 
and in the latter part of his life declared, that 
their conduct towards him since his departure 
from London " had been perfidiousness im- 
proving on perfidiousness, and inhumanity on 
inhumanity." 

It is not to be supposed that the necessities of 
Mr. Savage did not sometimes incite him to sa- 
tirical exaggerations of the behaviour of those 
by whom he thought himself reduced to them. 
But it must be granted, that the diminution of 
his allowance was a great hardship, and that 
those who withdrew their subscriptions from a 
man, who, upon the faith of their promise, had 
gone into a kind of banishment, and abandoned 
all those by whom he had been before relieved 
in his distresses, will find it no easy task to vin- 
dicate their conduct. 

It may be alleged, and perhaps justly, that he 
was petulant and contemptuous ; that he more 
frequently reproached his subscribers for not 
giving him more, than thanked them for what 
h« received ; but it is to be remembered, that 



* Reprinted in tlie late Collection. 



his conduct, and this is the worst charge that 
can be drawn up against him, did them no real 
injury, and that it therefore ought rather to 
have been pitied than resented ; at least, the re- 
sentment it might provoke ought to have been 
generous and manly ; epithets which his con- 
duct will hardly deserve, that starves the man 
whom he has persuaded to put himself into his 
power. 

It might have been reasonably demanded by 
Savage, that they should, before they had taken 
away what they promised, have replaced him in 
his former state, that they should have taken no 
advantages from the situation to which the ap- 
pearance of their kindness had reduced him f 
and that he should have been recalled to London 
before he was abandoned. He might justly 
represent, that he ought to have been con- 
sidered as a lion in the toils, and demand to 
be released before the dogs should be loosed 
upon him. 

He endeavoured, indeed, to release himself, 
and, with an intent to return to London, went 
to Bristol, where a repetition of the kindness 
which htf had formerly found invited him to 
stay. He was not only caressed and treated, 
but had a collection made for him of about 
thirty pounds, with which it had been happy if 
he had immediately departed for London ; but 
his negligence did not suffer him to consider, 
that such proofs of kindness were not often to 
be expected, and that this ardour of benevolence 
was in a great degree the effect of novelty, and 
might, probably, be every day less ; and there- 
fore he took no care to improve the happy time, 
but was encouraged by one favour to hope for 
another, till at length generosity was exhausted, 
and officiousness wearied. 

Another part of his misconduct was the 
practice of prolonging his visits to unseasonable 
hours, and disconcerting all the families into 
which he was admitted. This was an error in 
a place of commerce, which all the charms of 
his conversation could not compensate ; for 
what trader would purchase such airy satisfac- 
tion by the loss of solid gain, which must be 
the consequence of midnight merriment, as 
those hours which were gained at night were 
generally lost in the morning ? 

Thus Mr. Savage, after the curiosity of the 
inhabitants was gratified, found the number of 
his friends daily decreasing, perhaps without 
suspecting for what reason their conduct was 
altered ; for he still continued to harass, with 
his nocturnal intrusions, those that yet coun- 
tenanced him, and admitted him to their houses. 

But he did not spend all the time of his re- 
sidence at Bristol in visits or at taverns ; for he 
sometimes returned to his studies, and began 
several considerable designs. When he felt an 
inclination to write, he always retired from 
the knowledge of his friends, and lay hid in an 



SAVAGE. 



245 



obscure part of the suburbs, till he found him- 
self ag ain desirous of company, to which it is 
likely that intervals of absene* made him more 
welcome. 

He was always full of his design of returning 
to London, to bring his tragedy upon the stage; 
but, having neglected to depart with the money 
that was raised for him, he could not after- 
wards procure a sum sufficient to defray the ex- 
penses of his journey ; nor perhaps would a 
fresh supply have had any other effect, than, by 
putting immediate pleasures into his power, to 
have driven the thoughts of his journey out of 
his mind. 

While he was thus spending the day in con- 
triving a scheme for the morrow, distress stole 
upon him by imperceptible degrees. His con- 
duct had already wearied some of those who 
were at first enamoured of his conversation ; 
but he might, perhaps, still have devolved to 
others, whom he might have entertained with 
equal success, had not the decay of his clothes 
made it no longer consistent with their vanity 
to admit him to their tables, or to associate with 
him in public places. He now began to find 
every man from home at whose house he called ; 
and was therefore no longer able to procure the 
necessaries of life, but wandered about the 
town, slighted and neglected, in .quest of a din- 
ner which he did not always obtain. 

To complete his misery, he was pursued by 
the officers for small debts which he had con 
tracted; and was therefore obliged to withdraw 
from the small number of friends from whom 
he had still reason to hope for favours. His 
custom was, to lie in bed the greatest part of 
the day, and to go out in the dark with the ut- 
most privacy, and, after having paid his visit, 
return again before morning to his lodging, 
which was the garret of an obscure inn. 

Being thus excluded on one hand, and'con- 
fined on the other, he suffered the utmost ex- 
tremities of poverty, and often fasted so long 
that he was seized with faintness, and had lost 
his appetite, not being able to bear the smell of 
meat, till the action of his stomach was restored 
by a cordial. 

In this distress he received a remittance of 
five pounds from London, with which he pro- 
vided himself a decent coat, and determined to 
go to London, but unhappily spent his money 
at a favoui'ite tavern. Thus was he again con- 
fined to Bristol, where he was every day hunted 
by bailiffs. In this exigence • he once more 
found a friend, who sheltered him in his house, 
though at the usual inconveniences with which 
his company was attended ; for he could neither 
be persuaded to go to bed in the night, nor to 
rise in the day. 

It is observable, that in these various scenes 
of misery he was always disengaged and cheer- 
ful ; he at some times pursued his studies, and 



at others continued or enlarged his epistolary 
correspondence; nor was he ever so far dejected 
as to endeavour to procure an increase of his al- 
lowance by any other methods than accusations 
and reproaches. 

He had now no longer any hopes of assistance 
from his friends at Bristol, who as merchants, 
and by consequence sufficiently studious of pro- 
fit, cannot be supposed to have looked with 
much compassion upon negligence and extrava- 
gance, or to think any excellence equivalent to 
a fault of such consequence as neglect of econo- 
my. It is natural to imagine, that many of 
those who would have relieved his read wants, 
were discouraged from the exertion of their be- 
nevolence by observation of the use which was 
made of their favours, and conviction that re- 
lief would only be momentary, and, that the 
same necessity would quickly return. 

At last he quitted the house of his friend, and 
returned to his lodging at the inn, still intend- 
ing to set out in a few days to London ; but on 
the 10th of January, 1742-3, having been at 
supper with two of his friends, he was at his 
return to his lodgings arrested for a debt of 
about eight pounds, which he owed at a coffee- 
house, and conducted to the house of a sheriff's 
officer. The account which he gives of this 
misfortune, in a letter to one of the gentlemen 
with whom he had supped, is too remarkable to 
be omitted. 

" It was not a little unfortunate for me, that 
I spent yesterday's evening with you ; because 
the hour hindered me from entering on my new 
lodging ; however, I have now got one, but such 
a one as I believe nobody would choose. 

" I was arrested at the suit of Mrs. Read, 
just as I was going up stairs to bed, at Mr. 
Bowyer's ; but taken in so private a manner, 
that I believe nobody at the V/hite Lion is ap- 
prised of it : though I let the officers know the 
strength, or rather the weakness, of my pocket, 
yet they treated me with the utmost civility ; 
and even when they conducted me to confine- 
ment, it was in such a manner, that I verily be- 
lieve I could have escaped, which I would ra- 
ther be ruined than have done, notwithstand- 
ing the whole amount of my finances was but 
threepence halfpenny. 

" In the first place, I must insist, that you 
will industriously conceal this from Mrs, 
S s, because I would not have her good- 
nature suffer that pain, which I know she 
would be apt to feel on this occasion. 

" Next, I conjure you, dear Sir, by all the 
ties of friendship, by no means to have one un- 
easy thought on my account ; but to have the 
same pleasantry of countenance and unruffled 
serenity of mind, which (God be praised!) I 
have in this, and have had in a much severer 
calamity. Furthermore, I charge you, if you 
value my friendship as truly as I do yours, not 
I i 



246 



SAVAGE. 



to utter, or even harbour, the least resentment 
against Mrs. Read. I believe she has ruined 
me, but I freely forgive her ; and, though I will 
never more have any intimacy with her, I 
would, at a due distance, rather do her an act 
of good than ill-will. Lastly, (pardon the ex- 
pression) I absolutely command you not to of- 
fer me any pecuniary assistance, nor to attempt 
getting me any from any one of your friends. 
At another time, or on any other occasion, you 
may, dear friend, be well assured, I would ra- 
ther write to you in the submissive style of a 
request, than that of a peremptory command. 

" However, that my truly valuable friend 
may not think I am too proud to ask a favour, 
let me intreat you to let me have your boy to 
attend me this day, not only for the sake of sav- 
ing me the expense of porters, but for the de- 
livery of some letters to people whose names I 
would not have known to strangers. 

" The civil treatment I have thus far met 
from those whose prisoner I am, makes me 
thankful to the Almighty, that though he has 
thought fit to visit me, on my birth-night, with 
affliction, yet (such is his great goodness!) my 
affliction is not without alleviating circum- 
stances. I murmur not; but am all resig- 
nation to the divine will. As to the world, 
I hope that I shall be endued by Heaven with 
that presence of mind, that serene dignity in 
misfortune, that constitutes the character of a 
true nobleman ; a dignity far beyond that of co- 
ronets ; a nobility arising from the just prin- 
ciples of philosophy, refined and exalted by 
those of Christianity." 

He continued five days at the officer's, in 
hopes that he should be able to procure bail, and 
avoid the necessity of going to prison. The 
state in which he passed his time, and the treat- 
ment which he received, are very justly ex- 
pressed by him in a letter which he wrote to a 
friend : " The whole day," says he, " has been 
employed in various people's filling my head 
with their foolish chimerical systems, which has 
obliged me coolly (as far as nature will admit) 
to digest and accommodate myself to every dif- 
ferent person's way of thinking ; hurried from 
one wild system to another, till it has quite 
made a chaos of my imagination, and nothing 
done — promised — disappointed — ordered to send, 
every hour, from one part of the town to the 
other " 

When his friends, who had hitherto caressed 
and applauded him, found that to give bail and 
pay the debt was the same, they all refused to 
preserve him from a prison at the expense of 
eight pounds ; and therefore, after having been 
for some time at the officer's house, " at an im- 
mense expense," as he ohserves in his letter, he 
was at length removed to Newgate. 

This expense he was enabled to support by 
tht generosity of Mr. Nash at Bath, who, upon 



receiving from him an account of hi3 condition, 
immediately sent him five guineas, and pro- 
mised to promote his subscription at Bath with 
all his interest. 

By his removal to Newgate, he obtained at 
least a freedom from suspense, and rest from 
the disturbing vicissitudes of hope and disap- 
pointment : he now found that his friends were 
only companions, who were willing to share his 
gayety, but not to partake of his misfortunes ; 
and therefore he no longer expected any assis- 
tance from them. 

It must, however, be observed of one gentle- 
man, that he offered to release him by paying 
the debt ; but that Mr. Savnge would not con- 
sent ; I suppose, because he thought he had be- 
fore been too burdensome to him. 

He was offered by some of his friends that a 
collection should be made for his enlargement: 
but he " treated the proposal," and declared* 
" he should again treat it with disdain. As to 
writing any mendicant letters, he had too high 
a spirit, and determined only to write to some 
ministers of state to try to regain his pension." 

He continued to complainf of those that had 
sent him into the country, and objected to them, 
that he had " lost the profits of his play, which 
had been finished three years ;" and in another 
letter declares his resolution to publish a pam- 
phlet, that the world "might hnow how " he 
had been used." 

This pamphlet was never written ; for he in 
a very short time recovered his usual tranquil- 
lity, and cheerfully applied himself to more in- 
offensive studies. He indeed steadily declared, 
that he was promised a yearly allowance of 
fifty pounds, and never received half the sum ; 
but he seemed to resign himself to that as well 
as to other misfortunes, and lose the remem- 
brance of it in his amusements and employ- 
ments. 

The cheerfulness with which he bore his con- 
finement appears from the following letter, 
which he wrote January the 30th, to one of his 
friends in London. 

" I now write to you from my confinement 
in Newgate, where I have been ever since 
Monday last was se'nnight, and where I enjoy 
myself with much more tranquillity than I have 
known for upwards of a twelvemonth past ; 
having a room entirely to myself, and pursuing 
the amusement of my poetical studies, uninter- 
rupted, and agreeably to my mind. I thank 
the Almighty, I am now all collected in myself ; 
and, though my person is in confinement, my 
mind can expatiate on ample and useful sub- 
jects with all the freedom imaginable. I am 
now more conversant with the Nine than ever, 



* In a letter after Iris confinement. 
t Letter, Jan. 15. 



-Dr. J. 



SAVAGE. 



247 



and if, instead of a Newgate-bird, I may be al- 
lowed to be a bird of the Muses, I assure you, 
Sir, I sing very freely in my cage ; sometimes, 
indeed, in the plaintive notes of the night- 
ingale ; but at others in cheerful strains of the 
lark." 

In another letter he observes, that he ranges 
from one subject to another, without confining 
bimself to any particular task : and that he was 
employed one week upon one attempt, and the 
next upon another. 

Surely the fortitude of this man deserves, at 
least, to be mentioned with applause ; and, 
whatever faults may be imputed to bim, the 
virtue of suffering well cannot be denied him. 
The two powers which, in the opinion of Epic- 
tetus, constituted a wise man, are those of bear- 
ing and forbearing ; which it cannot indeed be 
affirmed to have been equally possessed by Sa- 
vage ; and indeed the want of one obliged him 
very frequently to practise the other. 

He was treated by Mr. Dagge, the keeper of 
the prison, with great humanity; was supported 
by him at his own table, without any certainty 
of recompense ; had a room to himself, to which 
he could at any time retire from all disturb- 
ance ; was allowed to stand at the door of the 
prison, and sometimes taken out into the fields;* 
so that he suffered fewer hardships in prison 
than he had been accustomed to undergo in the 
greatest part of his life. 

The keeper did not confine his benevolence to 
a gentle execution of his office, but made some 
overtures to the creditor for his release, though 
without effect; and continued, during the 
whole time of his imprisonment, to treat him 
with the utmost tenderness and civility. 

Virtue is undoubtedly most laudable in that 
state which makes it most difficult ; and there- 
fore the humanity of a gaoler certainly deserves 
this public attestation; and the man, whose 
heart has not been hardened by such an employ- 
ment, may be justly proposed as a pattern of 
benevolence. If an inscription was once en- 
graved " to the honest toll-gatherer," less 
honours ought not to be paid " to thi tender 
gaoler." 

Mr. Savage very frequently received visits, 
and sometimes presents, from his acquaintances ; 
but they did not amount to a subsistence, for 
the greater part of which he was indebted to the 
generosity of this keeper; but these favours, 
however they might endear to him the particu- 
lar persons from whom he received them, were 
very far from impressing upon his mind any 
advantageous ideas of the people of Bristol, and 
therefore he thought he could not more pro- 
perly employ himself in prison, than in writ- 



-N. 



See this confirmed, Gent. Mag. vol. Ivii. 1140. 



ing a poem called " London and Bristol de- 
lineated."* 

When he had brought this poem to its pre- 
sent state, which, without considering the 
chasm, is not perfect, he wrote to London an 
account of his design, and informed his friend,f 
that he was determined to print it with his 
name ; but enjoined him not to communicate 
his intention to his Bristol acquaintance. The 
gentleman, surprised at his resolution, endea- 
voured to dissuade him from publishing it, at 
least from prefixing his name; and declared, 
that he could not reconcile the injunction of se- 
crecy with his resolution to own it at its first 
appearance. To this Mr. Savage returned an 
answer, agreeable to his character, in the fol- 
lowing terms : 

" I received yours this morning; and not 
without a little surprise at the contents. To 
answer a question with a question, you ask me 
concerning London and Bristol, why will I add 
delineated? Why did Mr. Woolaston add the 
same word to his ' Religion of Nature?' I 
suppose that it was his will and pleasure to add 
it in his case ; and it is mine to do so in my 
own. You are pleased to tell me, that you un- 
derstand not why secrecy is enjoined, and yet 
1 intend to set my name to it. My answer is 
— I have my private reasons, which I am not 
obliged to explain to any one. You doubt my 

friend Mr. S \ would not approve of it— 

And what is it to me whether he does or not? 

Do you imagine that Mr. S is to dictate to 

me? If any man who calls himself my friend 
should assume such an air, I would spurn at 
his friendship with contempt. You say, 1 
seem to think so by not letting him know it— 
And suppose I do, what then ? Perhaps I can 
give reasons for that disapprobation, very foreign 
from what you would imagine. You go on in 
saying, Suppose I should not put my name to 
it — My answer is, that I will not suppose any 
such thing, being determined to the contrary : 
neither, Sir, would I have you suppose that I 
applied to you for want of another press : nor 
would I have you imagine, that I owe Mr. 
S- obligations which I do not." 

Such was his imprudence, and such his obsti- 
nate adherence to his own resolutions, however 
absurd ! A prisoner ! supported by charity '. 
and, whatever insults he might have received 
during the latter part of his stay at Bi'istol, 
once caressed, esteemed, and presented with a 
liberal collection, he could forget on a sudden 
his danger and his obligations, to gratify the 
petulance of his wit, or the eagerness of his re- 



* The Author preferred this title to that of " Lon- 
don and Bristol compared ;" which, when he began 
the piece, he intended to prefix to it. — Dr. J. 

t This friend was Mr. Cave, the printer. — N. 

I Mr. Strong, of the Post office,~N. 



24S 



SAVAGE. 



sentment, and publish a satire, by which he 
might reasonably expect that he should alienate 
those who then supported him, and provoke 
those whom he could neither resist nor escape. 

This resolution, from the execution of which 
it is probable that only his death could have 
hindered him, is sufficient to show, how much 
he disregarded all considerations that opposed 
his present passions, and how readily he haz- 
arded all future advantages for any immediate 
gratifications. Whatever was his predominant 
inclination, neither hope nor fear hindered him 
from complying with it ; nor had opposition 
any other effect than to heighten his ardour, 
and irritate his vehemence. 

This performance was however laid aside, 
while he was employed in soliciting assistance 
from several great persons ; and one interrup- 
tion succeeding another, hindex*ed him from 
supplying the chasm, and perhaps from retouch- 
ing the other parts, which he can hardly be 
imagined to have finished in his own opinion ; 
for it is very unequal, and some of the lines are 
rather inserted to rhyme to others, than to 
support or improve the sense ; but the first and 
last parts are worked up with great spirit and 
elegance. 

His time was spent in the prison for the most 
part in study, or in receiving visits ; but some- 
times he descended to lower amusements, and 
diverted himself in the kitchen with the con- 
versation of the criminals ; for it was not pleas- 
ing to him to be much without company ; and, 
though he was very capable of a judicious 
choice, he was often contented with the first 
that offered ; for this he was sometimes re- 
proved by his friends, who found him sur- 
rounded with felons : but the reproof was on 
that, as on other occasions, thrown away; he 
continued to gratify himself, and to set very 
little value on the opinion of others. 

But here, as in every other scene of his life, 
he made use of such opportunities as occurred 
of benefiting those who were more miserable 
than himself, and was always ready to perform 
any office of humanity to his fellow-prisoners. 

He had now ceased from corresponding with 
any of his subscribers except one, who yet con- 
tinued to remit him the twenty pounds a year 
which he had promised him, and by whom it 
was expected that he would have been in a 
very short time enlarged, because he had di- 
rected the keeper to inquire after the state of 
his debts. 

However, he took care to enter his name ac- 
cording to the forms of the court,* that the 
creditor might be obliged to make some allow- 
ance, if he was continued a prisoner, and, when 
on that occasion he appeared in the hall, was 
treated with very unusual respect. 

* See Cent. Mag. vol. lvii. 1010.— N,. 



But the resentment of the city was after- 
wards raised by some accounts that had been 
spread of the satire ; and he was informed that 
some of the merchants intended to pay the al- 
lowance which the law required, and to detain 
him a prisoner at their own expense. This he 
treated as an empty menace; and perhaps 
might have hastened the publication, only to 
show, how much he was superior to their in- 
sults, had not all his schemes been suddenly 
destroyed. 

When he had been six months in prison, he 
received from one of his friends,* in whose 
kindness he had the greatest confidence, and ox, 
whose assistance he chiefly depended, a letter, 
that contained a charge of a very atrocious in- 
gratitude, drawn up in such terms as sudden 
resentment dictated. Henley, in one of his 
advertisements, had mentioned, " Pope's treat- 
ment of Savage." This was supposed by Pope 
to be the consequence of a complaint made by 
Savage to Henley, and was therefore mentioned 
by him with much resentment. Mr. Savage 
returned a very solemn protestation of his in- 
nocence, but however appeared much disturbed 
at the accusation. Some days afterwards he 
was seized with a pain in his back and side, 
which, as it was not violent, was not suspected 
to be dangerous ; but, growing daily more lan- 
guid and dejected, on the 25th of July he con- 
fined himself to his room, and a fever seized 
his spirits. The symptoms grew every day 
more formidable, but his condition did not en- 
able him to procure any assistance. The last time 
that the keeper saw him was on July the Slst, 
1743 ; when Savage, seeing Mm at his bedside, 
said, with an uncommon earnestness, " I have 
something to say to you, Sir;" but, after a 
pause, moved his hand in a melancholy man- 
ner ; and, finding himself unable to recollect 
what he was going to communicate, said, " 'Tis 
gone!" The keeper soon after left him; and 
the next morning he died. He was buried in 
the church-yard of St. Peter, at the expense of 
the keeper. 

Such was the life and death of Richard Sa- 
vage, a man equally distinguished by his virtues 
and vices ; and at once remarkable for his weak- 
nesses and abilities. 

He was of a middle stature, of a thin habit 
of body, a long visage, coarse features, and me- 
lancholy aspect ; of a grave and manly deport- 
ment, a solemn dignity of mien, but which, 
upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an 
engaging easiness of manner. His walk was 
slow, and his voice tremulous and mournful. 
He was easily excited to smiles, but very sel- 
dom provoked to laughter. 



* Mr. Pope. See some extracts of letters from 
that gentleman to and concerning Mr. Savage, in 
RuffheaoYs Life of Pope, p. 502.— R. 



SAVAGE. 



249 



His mind was in an uncommon degree vi- 
gorous and active. His judgment was accurate, 
his apprehension quick, and his memory so te- 
nacious, that he was frequently observed to 
know what he had learned from others, in a 
short time, better than those by whom he was 
informed ; and could frequently recollect inci- 
dents, with all their combination of circum- 
stances, which few would have regarded at the 
present time, but which the quickness of his 
apprehension impressed upon him. He had the 
peculiar felicity that his attention never de- 
serted him ; he was present to every object, and 
regardful of the most trifling occurrences. He 
had the art of escaping from his own reflec- 
tions, and accommodating himself to every new 
scene. 

To this quality is to be imputed the extent of 
his knowledge, compared with the small time 
which he spent in visible endeavours to acquire 
it. He mingled in cursory conversation with 
the same steadiness of attention as others apply 
to a lecture: and, amidst the appearance of 
thoughtless gayety, lost no new idea that was 
started, nor any hint that could be improved. 
He had therefore made in coffee-houses the 
same proficiency as others in their closets : and 
it is remarkable, that the writings of a man of 
little education and little reading have an air of 
learning scarcely to be found in any other per- 
formances, but which perhaps as often obscures 
as embellishes them. 

His judgment was eminently exact both with 
regard to writings and to men. The knowledge 
of life was indeed his chief attainment ; and it 
is not without some satisfaction, that I can pro- 
duce the suffrage of Savage in favour of human 
nature, of which he never appeared to entertain 
such odious ideas as some, who perhaps had 
neither his judgment nor experience, have pub- 
lished, either in ostentation of their sagacity, 
vindication of their crimes, or gratification of 
their malice. 

His method of life particularly qualified him 
for conversation, of which he knew how to 
practise all the graces. He was never vehe- 
ment or loud, but at once modest and easy, 
open and respectful ; his language was vivacious 
and elegant, and equally happy upon grave or 
humorous subjects. He was generally cen- 
sured for not knowing when to retire ; but that 
was not the defect of his judgment, but of his 
fortune : when he left his company, he was fre- 
quently to spend the remaining part of the 
night in the street, or at least was abandoned to 
gloomy reflections, which is not strange that 
he delayed as long as he could ; and sometimes 
forgot that he gave others pain to avoid it him- 
self. 

It cannot be said, that he made use of his 
abilities for the direction of his own conduct ; 
an irregular and dissipated manner of life had 



made him the slave of every passion that hap- 
pened to be excited by the presence of its object, 
and that slavery to his passions reciprocally 
produced a life irregular and dissipated. He 
was not master of his own motions, nor could 
promise any thing for the next day. 

With regard to his economy, nothing can be 
added to the relation of his life. He appeared 
to think himself born to be supported by others, 
and dispensed from all necessity of providing 
for himself ; he therefore never prosecuted any 
scheme of advantage, nor endeavoured even to 
secure the profits which his writings might 
have afforded him. His temper was, in conse- 
quence of the dominion of his passions, uncer- 
tain and capricious; he was easily engaged, 
and easily disgusted ; but he is accused of re- 
taining his hatred more tenaciously than his 
benevolence. 

He was compassionate both by nature and 
principle, and always ready to perform offices of 
humanity; but when he was provoked (and 
very small offences were sufficient to provoke 
him) he would prosecute his revenge with the 
utmost acrimony till his passion had subsided. 

His friendship was therefore of little value ; 
for, though he was zealous in the support or 
vindication of those whom he loved, yet it was 
always dangerous to trust him, because he con- 
sidered himself as discharged by the first quar- 
rel from all ties of honour or gratitude ; and 
would betray those secrets which in the warmth 
of confidence had been imparted to him. This 
practice drew upon him a universal accusation 
of ingratitude; nor can it be denied that ho 
was very ready to set himself free from the 
load of an obligation ; for he could not bear to 
conceive himself in a state of dependence, his 
pride being equally powerful with his other 
passions, and appearing in the form of inso- 
lence at one time, and of vanity at another. 
Vanity, the most innocent species of pride, was 
most frequently predominant : he could not 
easily leave off, when he had once begun to 
mention himself or his works; nor ever read 
his verses without stealing his eyes from the 
page, to discover in the faces of his audience, 
how they were affected with any favourite 



A kinder name than that of vanity ought to 
be given to the delicacy with which he was 
always careful to separate his own merit from 
every other man's, and to reject that praise to 
which he had no claim. He did not for- 
get, in mentioning his performances, to mark 
every line that had been suggested or amended ; 
and was so accurate, as to relate that he owed 
three words in " The Wanderer" to the advice 
of his friends. 

His veracity was questioned, but with little 
reason ; his accounts, though not indeed always 
the same, were generally consistent. When he 



250 



S W I F T 



loved any man, lie suppressed all his faults ; 
and, when he had been offended by him, con- 
cealed all his virtues : but his characters were 
generally true, so far as he proceeded; though 
it cannot be denied, that his partiality might 
have sometimes the effect of falsehood. 

In cases indifferent, he was zealous for vir- 
tue, truth, and justice : he knew very well the 
necessity of goodness to the present and future 
happiness of mankind ; nor is there perhaps 
any writer, who has less endeavoured to please 
by flattering the appetites, or perverting the 
judgment. 

As an author, therefore, and he now ceases to 
influence mankind in any other character, if 
one piece which he had resolved to suppress, be 
excepted, he has very little to fear from the 
strictest moral or religious censure. And 
though he may not be altogether secure against 
the objections of the critic, it must however be 
acknowledged, that his works are the produc- 
tions of a genius truly poetical; and, what many 
writers who have been more lavishly applauded 
cannot boast, that they have an original air, 
which has no resemblance of any foregoing 
writer, that the versification and sentiments 
have a cast peculiar to themselves, which no 
man can imitate with success, because what 
was nature in Savage would in another be affec- 
tation. It must be confessed, that his descrip- 
tions are striking, his images animated, his fic- 
tions justly imagined, and all his allegories art- 
fully pursued; that his diction is elevated, 
though sometimes forced, and his numbers so- 
norous and majestic, though frequently sluggish 
and encumbered. Of his style, the general 
fault is harshness, and its general excellence is 
dignity ; of his sentiments, the prevailing beau- 



ty is simplicity, and uniformity the prevailing 
defect. 

For his life, or for his writings, none, who 
candidly consider his fortune, will think an 
apology either necessary or difficult. If he was 
not always sufficiently instructed on his subject, 
his knowledge was at least greater than could 
have been attained by others in the same state. 
If his works were sometimes unfinished, accu- 
racy cannot reasonably be exacted from a man 
oppressed with want, which he has no hope of 
relieving but by a speedy publication. The in- 
solence and resentment of which he is accused 
were not easily to be avoided by a great, mind, 
irritated by perpetual hardships, and constrained 
hourly to return the spurns of contempt, and 
repress the insolence of prosperity ; and vanity 
may surely be jreadily pardoned in him, to whom 
life afforded no other comforts than barren 
praises, and the consciousness of deserving them. 

Those are no proper judges of his conduct, 
who have slumbered away their time on the 
down of plenty ; nor will any wise man pre- 
sume to say, " Had I been in Savage's con- 
dition,. I should have lived or written better 
than Savage." 

This relation will not be wholly without its 
use, if those, who languish under any part of 
his sufferings, shall be enabled to fortify their 
patience, by reflecting that they feel only those 
afflictions from which the abilities of Savage 
did not exempt him ; or those, who, in confi- 
dence of superior capacities or attainments, 
disregarded the common maxims of life, shall 
be reminded, that nothing will supply the want 
of prudence ; and that negligence and irregular- 
ity, long continued, will make knowledge use- 
less, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible. 



S W I F T. 



An account of Dr. Swift has been already col- 
lected, with great diligence and acuteness, by 
Dr. Hawkesworth, according to a scheme 
which I laid before him in the intimacy of our 
friendship.. I cannot therefore be expected to 
say much of a life, concerning which I had 
long since communicated my thoughts to a 
man capable of dignifying his narrations with 
so much elegance of language and force of sen- 
timent. 

Jonathan Swift was, according to an ac- 



count said to be written by himself,* the son of 
Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at 
Dublin on St. Andrew's day, in 1667: accord- 
ing to his own report, as delivered by Pope to 
Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a 
clergyman, who was minister of a parish in 



* Mr. Sheridan, in his Life of Swift, observes 
that this account was really written by the Dean, 
and now exists in his own hand-writing in the li- 
brary of Dublin College. — R. 



SWIFT. 



'.51 



Herefordshire. * During his life the place of 
his hirth was undetermined. lie was contented 
to he called an Irishman by the Irish ; but 
would occasionally call himself an Englishman. 
The question may, without much regret, be 
left in the obscurity in which he delighted to 
involve it. 

Whatever was his birth, his education was 
Irish. He was sent at the age of six to the 
8chool at Kilkenny, and in his fifteenth year 
(1682) was admitted into the University of 
Dublin. 

In his academical studies he was either not 
diligent or not happy. It must disappoint every 
reader's expectation, that when at the usual 
time he claimed the bachelorship of arts, he was 
found by the examiners too conspicuously defi- 
cient for regular admission, and obtained his 
degree at last by special favour ; a term used in 
that University to denote want of merit. 

Of this disgrace it may be easily supposed 
that he was much ashamed, and shame had its 
proper effect in producing reformation. He re- 
solved from that time to study eight hours a 
day, and continued his industry for seven years, 
with what improvement is sufficiently known. 
This part of his story well deserves to be re- 
membered; it may afford useful admonition 
and powerful encouragement to many men, 
whose abilities have been made for a time use- 
less by their passions or pleasures, and who, 
having lost one part of life in idleness, are 
tempted to throw away the remainder in 
despair. 

In this course of daily application he con- 
tinued three years longer at Dublin; and in 
this time, if the observation and memory of an 
old companion may be trusted, he drew the first 
sketch of his « Tale of a Tub." 

When he was about one-and- twenty (1688), 
being by the death of Godwin Swift, his uncle, 
who had supported him, left without subsis- 
tence, he went to consult his mother, who then 
lived at Leicester, about the future course of his 
life : and, by her direction, solicited the advice 
and patronage of Sir William Temple, who had 
married one of Mrs. Swift's relations, and 
whose father, Sir John Temple, master of the 
rolls in Ireland, had lived in great familiarity 
of friendship with Godwin Swift, by whom 
Jonathan had been to that time maintained. 

Temple received with sufficient kindness the 
nephew of his father's friend, with whom he 
was, when they conversed together, so much 
pleased, that he detained him two years in his 
house. Here he became known to King Wil- 
liam, who sometimes visited Temple when he 
was disabled by the gout, and, being attended 
by Swift in the garden, showed him how to cut 
asparagus in the Dutch way. 



• Spence's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 273. 



King William's notions were all military; 
and he expressed his kindness to Swift by offer- 
ing to make him a captain of horse. 

When Temple removed to Moor-park, he took 
Swift with him ; and when he was consulted 
by the Earl of Portland about the expedience 
of complying with a bill then depending for 
making parliaments triennial, against which 
King William was strongly prejudiced, after 
having in vain tried to show the Earl that the 
proposal involved nothing dangerous to royal 
power, he sent Swift for the same purpose to 
the King. Swift, who probably was proud of 
his employment, and went with all the con- 
fidence of a young man, found his arguments, 
and his art of displaying them, made totally 
ineffectual by the predetermination of the King; 
and used to mention this disappointment as his 
first antidote against vanity. 

Before he left Ireland he contracted a disor- 
der, as he thought, by eating too much fruit. 
The original of diseases is commonly obscure. 
Almost every boy eats as much fruit as he can 
get, without any great inconvenience. The 
disease of Swift was giddiness with deafness, 
which attacked him from time to time, began 
very early, pursued him. through life, and at 
last sent him to the grave, deprived of reason. 

Being much oppressed at Moor-park by this 
grievous malady, he was advised to try his na- 
tive air, and went to Ireland ; but, finding no 
benefit, returned to Sir William, at whose house 
he continued his studies, and is known to have 
read, among other books, " Cyprian" and " Ire- 
nssus." He thought exercise of great necessity, 
and used to run half a mile up and down a hih 
every two hours. 

It is easy to imagine that the mode in which 
his first degree was conferred, left him no great 
fondness for the University of Dublin, and 
therefore he resolved to become a master of arts 
at Oxford. In the testimonial which he pro- 
duced, the words of disgrace were omitted ; and 
he took his master's degree (July 5, 1692) with 
such reception and regard as fully contented 
him. 

While he lived with Temple, he used to pay 
his mother at Leicester a yearly visit. He 
travelled on foot, unless some violence of wea- 
ther drove him into a waggon; and at night 
he would go to a penny lodging, where he pur- 
chased clean sheets for sixpence. This practice 
Lord Orrery imputes to his innate love of 
grossness and vulgarity : some may ascribe it to 
his desire of surveying human life through all 
its varieties : and others, perhaps with equal 
probability, to a passion which seems to have 
been deeply fixed in his heart, the love of a 
shilling. 

In time he began to think that his attendance 
at Moor-park deserved some other recompence 
than pleasure, however mingled with improve- 



252 



S W I F T. 



ment, of Temple's conversation ; and grew so 
impatient, that (1694) he went away in dis- 
content. 

Temple, conscious of having given reason for 
complaint, is said to have made him deputy 
master of the rolls in Ireland : which, accord- 
ing to his kinsman's account, was an office 
which he knew him not able to discharge. 
Swift therefore resolved to enter into the 
church, in which he had at first no higher 
hopes than of the chaplainship to the Factory 
at Lisbon; but, being recommended to Lord 
Capel, he obtained the prebend of Kilroot, in 
Connor, of about a hundred pounds a year. 

But the infirmities of Temple made a com- 
panion like Swift so necessary, that he invited 
him back, with a promise to procure him an 
English preferment in exchange for the prebend, 
which he desired him to resign. With this re- 
quest Swift quickly complied, having perhaps 
equally repented their separation, and they lived 
on together with mutual satisfaction ; and, in 
the four years that passed between his return 
and Temple's death, it is probable that he 
wrote the " Tale of a Tub" and the " Battle 
of the Books." 

Swift began early to think, or to hope, that 
he was a poet, and wrote Pindaric odes to 
Temple, to the King, and to the Athenian So- 
ciety, a knot of obscure men,* who published a 
periodical pamphlet of answers to questions, 
sent, or supposed to be sent, by letters. I have 
been told that Dryden, having perused these 
verses, said, " Cousin. Swift, } t ou will never be a 
poet;" and that this denunciation was the mo- 
tive of Swift's perpetual malevolence to Dryden. 

In 1699 Temple died, and left a legacy with 
his manuscripts to Swift, for whom he had 
obtained, from King William, a promise of the 
first prebend that should be vacant at Westmin- 
ster or Canterbury. 

That this pi'omise might not be forgotten, 
Swift dedicated to the King the posthumous 
works with which he was intrusted : but nei- 
ther the dedication, nor tenderness for the man 
whom he once had treated with confidence and 
fondness, revived in King William the remem- 
brance of his promise. Swift awhile attended 
the court; but soon fo'und his solicitations 
hopeless. 

He was then invited by the Earl of Berkeley 
to accompany him into Ireland, as a private 
secretary ; but, after having done the business 
till their arrival at Dublin, he then found that 
one Bush had persuaded the Earl that a Clergy- 
man was not a proper secretary, and had ob- 
tained the office for himself. In a man like 
Swift, such circumvention and inconstancy 
must have excited violent indignation. 

* The publisher of this Collection was John Dun- 
ton.— R. 



But he had yet more to suffer. Lord Berke- 
ley had the disposal of the deanery of Derry, 
and Swift expected to obtain it; but, by the 
secretary's influence, supposed to have been se- 
cured by a bribe, it was bestowed on somebody 
else ; and Swift was dismissed with the livings 
of Laracor and Rathbeggin in the diocese of 
Meath, which together did not equal half the 
value of the deanery. 

At Laracor he increased the parochial duty 
by reading prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, 
and performed all the offices of his profession 
with great decency and exactness. 

Soon after his settlement at Laracor, he in- 
vited to Ireland the unfortunate Stella, a young 
woman whose name was Johnson, the daughter 
of the steward of Sir William Temple, who, in 
consideration of her father's virtues, left her a 
thousand pounds. With her came Mrs. Ding- 
ley, whose whole fortune was twenty-seven 
pounds a year for her life. With these ladies 
he passed his hours of relaxation, and to them 
he opened his bosom : but they never resided 
in the same house, nor did he ever see either 
without a witness. They lived at the parson- 
age, when Swift was away ; and, when he re- 
turned, removed to a lodging, or to the house of 
a neighbouring clergyman. 

Swift was not one of those minds which 
amaze the world with early pregnancy : his first 
work, except, his few poetical essays, was the 
" Dissentions in Athens and Rome," published 
(1701) in his thirty-fourth year. After its ap- 
pearance, paying a visit to some bishop, he 
heard mention made of the new pamphlet that 
Burnet had written, replete with political 
knowledge. When he seemed to doubt Burnet's 
right to the work, he was told by the bishop, 
that he was "a young man;" and, still per- 
sisting to doubt, that he was a " very positive 
young man." 

Three years afterwards (1704) was published 
" The Tale of a Tub:" of this book charity 
may be persuaded to think that it might be 
written by a man of a peculiar character with- 
out ill intention ; but it is certainly of danger- 
ous example. That Swift was its author, 
though it be universally believed, was never 
owned by himself, nor very well proved by any 
evidence; but no other claimant can be pro- 
duced, and he did not deny it when Archbishop 
Sharpe and the Dutchees of Somerset, by 
showing it to the Queen debarred him from a 
bishopric. 

When this wild work first raised the a.ten- 
tion of the public, Sacheverell, meeting Smal- 
ridge, tried to flatter him, by seeming to think 
him the author; but Small idge answered with 
indignation, " Not all that you and I have in 
the world, nor all that ever we shall have, 
should hire me to write the Tale of a Tub." 

The digressions relating to Wotton and Bent- 



SWIFT. 



25.1 



ley must be confessed to discover want of know- 
ledge or want of integrity ; he did not under- 
stand the two controversies, or he willingly 
misrepresented them. But wit can stand its 
ground against truth only a little while. The 
honours due to leai'ning have been justly distri- 
buted by the decision of posterity. 

" The Battle of the Books" is so like the 
" Combat des Livres," which the same question 
concerning the ancients and moderns had pro- 
duced in France, that the improbability of such 
a coincidence of thoughts without communica- 
tion is not, in my opinion, balanced by the ano- 
nymous protestation prefixed, in which all 
knowledge of the French book is peremptorily 
disowned.* 

For some time after, Swift was probably em- 
ployed in solitary study, gaining the qualifica- 
tions requisite for future eminence. How often 
he visited England, and with what diligence he 
attended his parishes, I know not. It was not 
till about four years afterwards that he became 
a professed author; and then, one year (1708) 
produced " The Sentiments of a Church-of- 
England Man ;" the ridicule of Astrology* 
under the name of " Bickerstaff ;" the " Ar- 
gument against abolishing Christianity;" and 
the Defence of the " Sacramental Test." 

" The Sentiments of a Church-of- England 
Man" is written with great coolness, modera- 
tion, ease, and perspicuity. The " Argument 
against abolishing Christianity" is a very happy 
and judicious irony. One passage in it de- 
serves to be selected : 

" If Christianity were once abolished, how 
could the free-thinkers, the strong reasoners, 
and the men of profound learning, be able to 
find another subject so calculated, in all points, 
whereon to display their abilities? What won- 
derful productions of wit should we be deprived 
of from those, whose genius, by continual prac- 
tice, hath been wholly turned upon raillery and 
invectives against religion, and would therefore 
never be able to shine, or distinguish them- 
selves, upon any other subject ? We are daily 
complaining of the great decline of wit among 
us, and would take away the greatest, perhaps 
*Jie only, topic we have left. Who would ever 
Lave suspected Asgill for a wit, or Toland for 
a philosopher, if the inexhaustible stock of 
Christianity had not been at hand to provide 
them with materials? What other subject, 
through all art or nature, could have produced 
Tindal for a profound author, or furnished him 
with readers? It is the wise choice of the 
subject that alone adorns and distinguishes the 
writer. For had a hundred such pens as these 
oeen employed on the side of religion, they 



* See Sheridan's Life, edif. I's-i, p. 525 ; vrliere are 
some remarks on this passage.— K. 



would have immediately sunk into silence and 
oblivion." 

The reasonableness of a Test is not hard to 
be proved; but, perhaps it must be allowed, that 
the proper test has not been chosen. 

The attention paid to the papers published 

| under the name of " Bickerstaff," induced 
Steele, when he projected " The Tatler," to as- 
sume an appellation which had already gained 

I possession of the reader's notice. 

In ths year following he wrote a " Project 

| for the Advancement of Religion," addressed 
to Lady Berkeley ; by Whose kindness it is net 
unlikely that he was advanced to his benefices. 
To this project, which is formed with great pu- 
rity of intention, and displayed with sprightli- 
ness and elegance, it can only be objected, that, 
like many projects, it is, if not generally im- 
practicable, yet evidently hopeless, as it supposes 

I more zeal, concord, and perseverance, than a 
view of mankind gives reason for expecting. 

He wrote likewise this year " A Vindication 
of Bickerstaff;" and an explanation of " An 
Ancient Prophecy," part written after the facts, 
and the rest never completed, but well planned 
to excite amazement. 

Soon after began the busy and important part 
of Swift's Life. He was employed (1710) by 
the Primate of Ireland to solicit the Queen for 
a remission of the first-fruits and twentieth 
parts to the Irish Clergy. With this pui^pose 
he had recourse to Mr. Harley, to whom he 
was mentioned as a man neglected aud op- 
pressed by the last ministry, because he had re- 
fused to co-operate with some of their schemes. 
What he had refused has neve*' been told ; what 
he had suffered was, I suppose, the exclusion 
from a bishopric by the remonstrances of 
Sharpe, whom he describes as " the harmless 
tool of others' hate," and whom he represents 
as afterwards " suing for pardon." 

Harley 's designs and situation were such as 
made him glad of an auxiliary so well qualified 
for his service; he therefore soon admitted him 
to familiarity, whether ever to confidence some 
have made a doubt ; but it would have been 
difficult to excite his zeal without persuading 
him that he was trusted, and not very easy to 
delude him fay false persuasions. 

He was certainly admitted to those meetings 
in which the first hints and original plan of 
action are supposed to have faeen formed ; and 
was one of the sixteen ministers, or agents of 
the ministry, who met weekly at each other's 
houses, and were united by the name of 
" Brothers." 

Being not immediately considered as an ob- 
durate tory, he conversed indiscriminately 
with all the wits, and yet was the friend of 
Steele ; who, in the •* Tatler," which began in 
April, 1709, confesses the advantage of his con- 
versation, and mentions something contributed 
K k 



V 



254 



S W I F T. 



by him to his paper. But he was now immerg- 
iug into political controversy; for the year 1710 
produced " The Examiner," of which Swift 
wrote' thirty-three papers. In argument he 
may be allowed to have the advantage; for 
where a wide system of conduct, and the whole 
of a public character, is laid open to inquiry, 
the accuser having the choice of facts, must 
be very unskilful if he does not prevail ; but, 
with regard to wit, I am afraid none of Swift's 
papers will be found equal to those by which 
Addison opposed him.* 

He wrote in the year 1711, a " Letter to 
the October Club," a number of tory gentle- 
men sent from the country to parliament, who 
formed themselves into a club, to the number 
of about a hundred, and met to animate the 
zeal, and raise the expectations, of each other. 
They thought, with great reason, that the minis- 
ters were losing opportunities ; that sufficient 
use was not made of the ardour of the nation ; 
they called loudly for more changes and stronger 
efforts ; and demanded the punishment of part, 
and the dismission cf the rest, of those whom 
they considered as public robbers. 

Their eagerness was not gratified by the 
<3,ueen, or by Harley. The Queen was pro- 
bably slow because she was afraid ; and Harley 
■was slow, because ha was doubtful: he was a 
tory only by necessity, or for convenience ; and 
w T hen he had power in his hands, had no settled 
purpose for which he should employ it ; forced 
to gratify to a certain degree the tories who 
supported him, but unwilling to make his re- 
concilement to the whigs utterly desperate, he 
corresponded at once with the two expectants 
of the crown, and kept, as has he-en observed, 
the succession undetermined. Not knowing 
what to do, he did nothing ; and, with the fate 
of a double dealer, at last he lost his power, 
but kept his enemies. 

Swift seems to have concurred in opinion 
with the " October Club;" but it was not in 
his power to quicken the tardiness of Harley, 
whom he stimulated as much as he could, but 
with little effect. He that knows not whitheT 
to go, is in no haste to move. Harley, who 
was perhaps not quick by nature, became yet 
more slow by irresolution ; and was content to 
hear that dilatoriness lamented as natural, 
whkh he applauded in himself as politic. 

"Without the tories, however, nothing could 
be done : and, as they were not to be gratified, 
they must be appeased ; and the conduct of the 
Minister, if it could not be vindicated, was to 
be plausibly excused. 

Early in the next year he published a " Pro- 



* Mr. Sheridan, however, says, that Addison's last 
Whig Examiner was published Oct. 12, 1711; and 
Swift's first Examiner, on the 10th of the following 
November.— R, 



posal for correcting, improving, and ascertain- 
ing the English Tongue," in a letter to the 
Earl of Oxford ; written without much know- 
ledge of the general nature of languages, and 
without any accurate inquiry into the history 
of other tongues. The certainty and stability 
which, contrary to all experience, he thinks at- 
tainable, he proposes to secure by instituting 
an academy ; the decrees of which, every man 
would have been willing, and many would have 
been proud, to disobey ; and which, being re- 
newed by successive elections, would in a short 
time have differed from itself. 

Swift now attained the zenith of his political 
importance : he published (1712) the " Conduct 
of the Allies," ten days before the parliament 
assembled. The purpose was to persuade the 
nation to a peace; and never had any writer 
more success. The people, who had been 
amused with bonfires and triumphal proces- 
sions, and looked with idolatry on the General 
and his friends, who, as they thought, had made 
England the arbitress of nations, were con- 
founded between shame and rage, when they 
found that " mines had been exhausted, and 
millions destroyed," to secure the Dutch or 
aggrandize the Emperor, without any advan- 
tage to ourselves ; that we had been bribing our 
neighbours to fight their own quarrel ; and that 
amongst our enemies we might number our 
allies. 

That is now no longer doubted, of which 
the nation was then first informed, that the war 
was unnecessarily protracted to fill the pockets 
of Marlborough : and that it would have been 
continued without end, if he could have con- 
tinued his annual plunder. But Swift, I sup- 
pose, did not yet know what he has since writ- 
ten, that a commission was drawn, which 
would have appointed him General for life, had 
it not become ineffectual by the resolution of 
Lord Cowper, who refused the seal. 

" Whatever is received," say the schools, 
"is received in proportion to the recipient." 
The power of a political treatise depends much 
upon the disposition of the people; the nation 
was then combustible, and a spark set it on fire. 
It is boasted, that between November and 
January, eleven thousand were sold ; a great 
number at that time, when we were yet not a 
nation of readers. To its propagation certainly 
no agency of power or influence was wanting. 
It furnished arguments for conversation, speech- 
es for debate, and materials fw parliamentary 
resolutions. 

Yet, surely, whoever surveys this wonder- 
working pamphlet with cool perusal, will con- 
fess that its efficacy was supplied by the passions 
of its readers ; that it operates by the mere 
weight of facts, with very little assistance from 
the hand that produced them. 

This year (1712) he published his " Reflec- 



S W I F T. 



255 



tions on the Barrier Treaty," which carries on 
the design of his " Conduct of the Allies," and 
shows how little regard in that negotiation had 
been shown to the interest of England, and how 
much of the conquered country had been de- 
manded by the Dutch. 

.'This was followed by " Remarks on the 
Bishop of Sarum's Introduction to the third 
Volume of the History of the Reformation;" 
a pamphlet which Burnet published as an 
alarm, to warn the nation of the approach of 
popery. Swift, who seems to have disliked the 
bishop with something more than political aver- 
sion, treats him like one whom he is glad of an 
opportunity to insult. 

Swift, being now the declared favourite and 
supposed confidant of the tory ministry, was 
treated by all that depended on the Court with 
the respect which dependants know how to pay. 
He soon began to feel part of the misery of 
greatness : he that could say that he knew hire, 
considered himself as having fortune in his 
power. Commissions, solicitations, remon- 
strances, crowded about him ; he was expected 
to do every man's business, to procure employ- 
ment for one, and to retain it for another. In 
assisting those who addressed him, he repre- 
sents himself as sufficiently diligent ; and de- 
sires to have others helieve, what he probably 
believed himself, that by his interposition many 
whigs of merit, and among them Addison and 
Congreve, were contimied in their places. But 
every man of known influence has so many pe- 
titions which he cannot grant, that he must ne- 
cessarily offend more than he gratifies, as the 
preference given to one affords all the rest rea- 
son for complaint. " When I give away a 
place," said Lewis XIV. " I make a hundred 
discontented, and one ungrateful." 

Much has been said of the equality and inde- 
pendence which he preserved in his conversa- 
tion with the ministers, of the frankness of 
his remonstrances, and the familiarity of his 
friendship. In accounts of this kind a few 
single incidents are set against the general te- 
nour of behaviour. No man, however, can pay 
a more servile tribute to the great, than by suf- 
fering his liberty in their presence to aggrandize 
. him in his own esteem. . Between different 
ranks of the community there is necessarily 
some distance ; he who is called by his superior 
to pass the interval, may properly accept the 
Jnvitation; br* petulance and obtrusion are 
rarely produced by magnanimity; nor have 
often any nobler cause than the pride of impor- 
tance, and the malice of inferiority. He who 
knows himself necessary may set, while that 
necessity lasts, a high value upon himself; as, 
in a lower condition, a servant eminently skil- 
ful may be saucy ; but he is saucy only because 
he is servile. £wift appears to have preserved 
the kindness of the great when they wanted 



him no longer; and therefore it must be al- 
lowed, that the childish freedom, to which he 
seems enough inclined, was overpowered by his 
better qualities. 

His disinterestedness has been likewise men- 
tioned ; a strain of heroism, which would have 
been in his condition romantic and superfluous. 
Ecclesiastical benefices, when they become va- 
cant, must be given away ; and the friends of 
power may, if there be no inherent disqualifica- 
tion, reasonably expect them. Swift accepted 
(1718) the deanery of St. Patrick, the best pre- 
ferment that his friends could venture* to give 
him. That ministry was in a great degree sup- 
ported by the clergy, who were not yet recon- 
ciled to the author of the " Tale of a Tub,' J 
and would not without much discontent and 
indignation have borne to see him installed in 
an English cathedral. 

He refused, indeed, fifty pounds from Lord 
Oxford ; but he accepted afterwards a draught 
of a thousand upon the Exchequer, which was 
intercepted by the Queen's death, and which he 
resigned, as he says himself, " multa gem-ens, 
with many a groan." 

In the midst of his power and his politics, he 
kept a journal of his visits, his walks, his inter- 
views with ministers, and quarrels with his 
servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson 
and Mrs. Dingley, to whom he knew that 
whatever befell him was interesting, and no ac- 
counts could be too minute. Whether these 
diurnal trifles were properly exposed to eyes 
which had never received any pleasure from 
the presence of the Dean, may be reasonably 
doubted : they have, however, some odd attrac- 
tion ; the reader, finding frequent mention of 
names which he has been used to consider as 
important, goes on in hope of information ; and, 
as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is 
disappointed he can hardly complain. It is 
easy to perceive, from every page, that though 
ambition pressed Swift into a life of bustle, 
the wish for a life of ease was always re- 
turning. 

He went to take possession of his deanery as 
soon as he had obtained it ; but he was not suf- 
fered to stay in Ireland more than a fortnight 
before he was recalled to England, that he 
might reconcile Lord Oxford and Lord Boling- 
broke, who began to look on one another with 
malevolence, which every day increased, and 
which Bolingbroke appeared to retain in his 
last years. 

Swift contrived an interview, from which 
they both departed discontented ; he procured a 
second, which only convinced him that the feud 



* This emphatic word has not escaped the watch* 
fal eye of Dr. War ton, who has placed a nota bent 
at it.— C. 



256 



SWIFT. 



was irreconcileable : he told them his opinion, 
that all was lost. This denunciation was con- 
tradicted hy Oxford • but Bolingbroke whis- 
pered that he was right. 

Before this violent dissention had shattered 
the ministry, Swift had published, the begin- 
nig of the year (1714), " The public Spirit of 
the Whigs," in answer to " The Crisis," a 
pamphlet for which Steele was expelled from 
the House of Commons. Swift was now so 
far alienated from Steele, as to think him no 
longer entitled to decency, and therefore treats 
him sometimes with contempt, and sometimes 
with abhorrence. 

In this pamphlet the Scotch were mentioned 
in terms so provoking to that irritable nation, 
that, resolving " not to be offended with im- 
punity," the Scotch Lords, in a body, demanded 
an audience of the Queen, and solicited repara- 
tion. A proclamation was issued, in which 
three hundred pounds were offered for the dis- 
covery of the author. From this storm he was, 
as he relates, " secured by a sleight;" of what 
kind, or by whose prudence, is not known; 
and such was the increase of his reputation, 
that the Scottish " nation applied again that he 
would be their friend." 

He was become so formidable to the whigs, 
that his familiarity with the ministers was 
clamoured at in parliament, particularly by 
two men, afterwards of great note, Aislabie 
and Walpole. 

But, by the disunion of his great friends, his 
importance and designs were now at an end : 
and seeing his services at last useless, he retired 
about June (1714) into Berkshire, where, in 
the house of a friend, he wrote, what was then 
suppressed, but has since appeared under the 
title of " Free Thoughts on the present State 
of Affairs." 

While he was waiting in this retirement for 
events which time or chance might bring to 
pass, the death of the Queen broke down at 
once the whole system of tory politics ; and 
nothing remained but to withdraw from the 
implacability of triumphant whiggism, and shel- 
ter himself in unenvied obscurity. 

The accounts of his reception in Ireland, 
given by Lord Orrery and Dr. Delany, are so 
different, that the credit of the writers, both 
undoubtedly veracious, cannot be saved, but by 
supposing, what I think is true, that they speak 
of different times. When Delany says, that he 
was received with respect, he means for the first 
fortnight, when he came to take legal possession ; 
and when Lord Orrery tells that he was pelted 
by the populace, he is to be understood of the 
time when, after the Queen's death, he became 
a settled resident. 

The Archbishop of Dublin gave him at first 
son™ disturbance in the exercise of bis juris- 
diction ; but it was soon discovered, that be- 



tween prudence and integrity he was seldom in 
the wrong : and that, when he was right, his 
spirit did not easily yield to opposition. 

Having so lately quitted the tumults of a 
party, and the intrigues of a court, they still 
kept his thoughts in agitation, as the sea fluc- 
tuates awhile when the storm has ceased. He 
therefore filled his hours with some historical 
attempts, relating to the " Change of the 
Ministers," and " the conduct of the Minis- 
try." He likewise is said to have written 
a " History of the Four last yeai's of Queen 
Anne," which he began in her life- time, and 
afterwards laboured with great attention, but 
never published. It was after his death in the 
hands of Lord Orrery and Dr. King. A book 
under that title was published, with Swift's 
name, by Dr. Lucas; of which I can only say, 
that it seemed by no means to correspond with 
the notions that I had formed of it, from a con- 
versation which I once heard between the Earl 
of Orrery and old Mr. Lewis. 

Swift now, much against his will, commenced 
Irishman for life, and was to contrive how he 
might be best accommodated ; n a country where 
he considered himself as >n a state of exile. It 
seems that his first recourse was to piety. The 
thoughts of death rushed upon him at this time, 
with such incessant importunity, that they took 
possession of his mind, when he first waked, 
for many years together. 

He opened his house by a public table two 
days a week, and found his entertainments gra- 
dually frequented by more and more visitants 
of learning among the men, and of elegance 
among the women. Mrs. Johnson had left the 
country, and lived in lodgings not far from the 
deanery. On his public days she regulated the 
table, but appeared at it as a mere guest like 
other ladies. 

On other days he often dined, at a stated 
price, with Mr. Worral, a clergyman of his 
cathedral, whose house was recommended by 
the peculiar neatness and pleasantry of his wife. 
To this frugal mode of living, he was first dis- 
posed by care to pay some debts which he had 
contracted, and he continued it for the pleasure 
of accumulating money. His avarice, how- 
ever, was not suffered to obstruct the claims of 
his dignity ; he was served in plate, and used to 
say that he was the poorest gentleman in Ire- 
land that ate upon plate, and the richest that 
lived without a coach. 

How he spent the rest of his time, and how 
he employed his hours of study, has been in- 
quired with hopeless curiosity. For who can 
give an account of another's studies? Swift 
was not likely to admit any to his privacies, oi 
to impart a minute account of his business or 
his leisure. 

Soon after (1716), in his forty-ninth year, he 
was privately married to Mrs. Johnson, by I)r 



SWIFT. 



257 



Ashe, bishop of Clogher, as Dr. Madden told 
me, in the garden. The marriage made no 
change in their mode of life ; they lived in dif- 
ferent houses, as before ; nor did she ever lodge 
in the deanery but when Swift was seized with 
a fit of giddiness. " It would be difficult," 
says Lord Orrery, " to prove that they were 
ever afterwards together without a third per- 
son." 

The Dean of St. Patrick's lived in a private 
manner, known and regarded only by his 
friends ; till, about the year 1720, he, by a pam- 
phlet, recommended to the Irish the use, and 
consequently the improvement, of their manu- 
facture. For a man to use the productions of 
his own labour is surely a natural right, and to 
like best what he makes himself is a natural 
passion. But to excite this passion, and en- 
force this right, appeared so criminal to those 
who had an interest in the English trade, that 
the printer was imprisoned ; and, as Hawkes- 
worth justly observes, the attention of the public 
being by this outrageous resentment turned 
upon the proposal, the author was by conse- 
quence made popular. 

In 1723 died Mrs. Van Homrigh, a woman 
made unhappy by her admiration of wit, and 
ignominiously distinguished by the name of 
Vanessa, whose conduct has been already suffi- 
ciently discussed, and whose history is too well 
known to be minutely repeated. She was a 
young woman fond of literature, whom De- 
can us the dean, called Cadenus by transposition 
of the letters, took pleasure in directing and in- 
structing ; till, from being proud of his praise, 
she grew fond of his person. Swift was then 
about forty-seven, at an age when vanity is 
strongly excited by the amorous attention of a 
young woman. If it be said that Swift should 
have checked a passion which he never meant 
to gratify, recourse must be had to that extenu- 
ation which he so much despised, " men are 
but men ;" perhaps, however he did not at first 
know his own mind, and, as he represents him- 
self, was undetermined. For his admission of 
her courtship, and his indulgence of her hopes 
after his marriage to Stella, no other honest plea 
■3an be found than that he delayed a disagreeable 
discovery from time to time, dreading the im- 
mediate bursts of distress, and watching for a 
favourable moment. She thought herself neg- 
lected, and died of disappointment; having 
ordered by her will the poem to be published, 
in which Cadenus had proclaimed her excel- 
lence, and confessed his love. The effect of the 
publication upon the Dean and Stella is thus 
related by Delany : 

" I have good reason to believe that they both 
were greatly shocked and distressed (though it 
may be differently) upon this occasion. The 
Dean made a tour to the south of Ireland, for 
about two months, at this time, to dissipate his 



thoughts, <nd give place to obloquy. And 
Stella retired (upon the earnest invitation or 
the owner) to- the house of a cheerful, generous, 
good-natured friend of the Dean's, whom she 
always much loved and honoured. There mj 
informer often saw her ; and I have reason t» 
believe, used his utmost endeavours to relieve, 
support, and amuse her, in this sad situation. 

" One little incident he told me on that occa- 
sion, I think, I shall never forget. As her 
friend was an hospitable, open-hearted man, 
well-beloved and largely acquainted, it happened 
one day that some gentlemen dropped into din- 
ner, who were strangers to Stella's situation ; 
and as the poem of " Cadenus and Vanessa" 
was then the general topic of conversation, one 
of them said, ' Surely that Vanessa must be an 
extraordinary woman, that could inspire the 
Dean to write so finely upon her.' Mrs. John- 
son smiled, and answered, ' that she thought 
that point not quite so clear; for it was well 
known the Dean could write finely upon a 
broomstick.' " 

The great acquisition of esteem and influence 
was made by the " Drapier's Letters" in 1724. 
One Wood, of Wolverhampton, in Stafford- 
shire, a man enterprising and rapacious, had, as 
is said, by a present to the Dutchess of Munster, 
obtained a patent, empowering him to coin one 
hundred and eighty thousand pounds of half- 
pence and farthings for the kingdom of Ireland, 
in which there was a very inconvenient and em- 
barrassing scarcity of copper coin ; so that it was 
possible to run in debt upon the credit of a piece 
of money ; for the cook or keeper of an ale-house 
could not refuse to supply a man that had silver 
in his hand, and the buyer would not leave his 
money without change. 

The project was therefore plausible. The 
scarcity, which was already great, Wood took 
care to make greater, by agents who gathered 
up the old halfpence; and was about to turn 
his brass into gold, by pouring the treasures of 
his new mint upon Ireland ; when Swift, find- 
ing that the metal was debased to an enormous 
degree, wrote letters, under the name of M. B. 
Drapier, to show the folly of receiving, and the 
mischief that must ensue by giving, gold and sil- 
ver for coin worth perhaps not a third part of 
its nominal value. 

The nation was alarmed ; the new coin was 
universally refused ; but the governors of Ire- 
land considered resistance to the King's patent 
as highly criminal ; and one Whitshed, then 
Chief Justice, who had tried the printer of the 
former pamphlet, and sent out the jury nin*. 
times, till by clamour and menaces they were 
frighted into a special verdict, now presented 
the Drapier, but could not prevail on the grand 
jury to find the bill. 

Lord Carteret and the privy-council published 
a proclamation, offering three hundred pounds 



258 



SWIFT. 



for discovering the author of the Fourth Letter. 
Swift had concealed himself from his printers, 
and trusted only his butler, who transcribed 
the paper. The man, immediately after the 
appearance of the proclamation, strolled from 
the house, and stayed out all night, and part of 
the next day. There was reason enough to 
fear that he had betrayed his master for the re- 
ward ; but he came home, and the Dean ordered 
him to put off his livery, and leave the house ; 
" for," said he, " I know that my life is in 
your power, and I will not bear, out of fear, 
either your insolence or negligence." The man 
excused his fault with great submission, and 
begged that he might be confined in the house 
while it was in his power to endanger his mas- 
ter : but the Dean resolutely turned him out, 
without taking farther notice of him, till the 
term of the information had expired, and then 
received him again. Soon afterwards he or- 
dered him and the rest of his servants into his 
presence, -without telling his intention, and 
bade them take notice that their fellow- servant 
was no longer Robert the butler ; but that his 
integrity had made him Mr. Blakeney, verger 
of St. Patrick's ; an officer whose income was 
between thirty and forty pounds a year : yet he 
still continued for some years to serve his old 
master as his butler.* 

Swift was known from this time by the ap- 
pellation of " The Dean." He was honoured 
by the populace as the champion, patron, and 
instructor, of Ireland ; and gained such power 
as, considered both in its extent and duration, 
scarcely any man has ever enjoyed without 
greater wealth or higher station. 

He was from this important year the oracle 
of the traders, and the idol of the rabble, and 
by consequence was feared and courted by all to 
w r hom the kindness of the traders or the popu- 
lace was necessary. The Drapier was a sign; 
the Drapier was a health ; and which way 
soever the eye or the ear was turned, some to- 
kens were found of the nation's gratitude to 
the Drapier. 

The benefit was indeed great ; he had rescued 
Ireland from a very oppressive and predatory 
invasion ; and the popularity which he had 
gained he was diligent to keep, by appearing 
forward and zealous on every occasion where 
the public interest was supposed to be involved. 
Nor did he much scruple to boast his influence; 
for when, upon some attempts to regulate the 
coin, Archbishop Boulter, then one of the jus- 
tices, accused him of exasperating the people, 
he exculpated himself by saying, " If I had 
lifted up my finger, they would have torn you 
to pieces." 



• An account somewhat different from this is 
£ireaby Mr. Sheridan in his Life of Swift, p. 211. 



But the pleasure of popularity was soon in- 
terrupted by domestic misery. Mrs. Johnson, 
whose conversation was to him the great softener 
of the ills of life, began in the year of the Dra- 
pier's triumph to decline ; and two years after- 
wards was so wasted with sickness, that her re- 
covery was considered as hopeless.' 

Swift was then in England, and had been in- 
vited by Lord Bolingbroke to pass the winter 
with him in France, but this call of calamity 
hastened him to Ireland, where perhaps his 
presence contributed to restore her to imperfect 
and tottering health. 

He was now so much at ease, that (1727) he 
returned to England ; where he collected three 
volumes of Miscellanies in conjunction with 
Pope, who prefixed a querulous and apologetical 
Preface. 

This important year sent likewise into the 
world " Gulliver's Travels;" a production so 
new and strange, that it filled the reader with 
a mingled emotion of merriment and amaze- 
ment. It was received with such avidity, that 
the price of the first edition was raised before 
the second could be made ; it was read by the 
high and the low, the learned and illiterate. 
Criticism was for a while lost in wonder ; no 
rules of judgment were applied to a book writ- 
ten in open defiance of truth and regularity. 
But when distinctions came to be made, the 
part which gave the least pleasure was that 
which describes the Flying Island, and that 
which gave most disgust must be the history of 
the Houyhnhnms. 

While Swift was enjoying the reputation of 
his new work, the news of the King's death 
arrived; and he kissed the hands of the new 
King and Queen three days after their ac- 
cession. 

By the Queen, when she was princess, he 
had been treated with some distinction, and was 
well received by her in her exaltation; but 
whether she gave hopes which she never took 
care to satisfy, or he formed expectations which 
she never meant to raise, the event was, that 
he always afterwards thought on her with male- 
volence, and particularly charged her with 
breaking her promise of some medals which she 
engaged to send him. 

1 know not whether she had not, in her turn 
some reason for complaint. A letter -was sent 
her, not so much entreating, as requiring, her 
patronage of Mrs. Barber, an ingenious Irish- 
woman, who was then begging subscriptions for 
her poems. To this letter was subscribed tht 
name of Swift, and it has all the appearances 
of his diction and sentiments : but it was not 
written in his hand, and had some little im- 
proprieties. When he was charged with this 
letter, he laid hold of the inaccuracies, and 
urged the improbability of the accusation, but 
never denied it ; he shuffles between cowardice 



SWIFT. 



259 



and veracity, and talks big when he says 
nothing.* 

He seems desirous enough of recommencing 
courtier, and endeavoured to gain the kindness 
of Mrs. Howard, remembering what Mrs. Ma- 
sham had performed in former times : but his 
flatteries were, like those of other wits, unsuc- 
cessful ; the lady either wanted power, or had 
no ambition of poetical immortality. 

He was seized, not long afterwards, by a fit 
of giddiness, and again heard of the sickness 
and danger of Mrs. Johnson. He then left the 
house of Pope, as it seems, with very little 
ceremony, finding " that two sick friends can- 
not live together;" and did not write to him 
till he found himself at Chester. 

He returned to a home of sorrow : poor Stella 
was sinking into the grave, and, after a lan- 
guishing decay of about two months, died in 
her forty-fourth year, on January 28, 1728. 
How much he wished her life, his papers show; 
nor can it be doubted that he dreaded the death 
of her whom he loved most, aggravated by the 
consciousness that himself had hastened it. 

Beauty and the power of pleasing, the great- 
est external advantages that woman can desire 
or possess, were fatal to the unfortunate Stella. 
The man whom she had the misfortune to love 
was, as Delany observes, fond of singularity, 
and desirous to make a mode of happiness for 
himself, different from the general course of 
things and order of Providence. From the 
time of her arrival in Ireland he seems resolved 
to keep her in his power, and therefore hin- 
dered a match sufficiently advantageous, by ac- 
cumulating unreasonable demands, and prescrib- 
ing conditions that could not be performed. 
While she was at her own disposal he did not 
consider his possession as secure ; resentment, 
ambition, or caprice, might separate them ; he 
was therefore resolved to make " assurance 
double sure," and to appropriate her by a pri- 
vate marriage, to which he had annexed the ex- 
pectation of all the pleasures of perfect friend- 
ship without the uneasiness of conjugal restraint. 
But with this state poor Stella was not satis- 
fied ; she never was treated as a wife, and to 
the world she had the appearance of a mistress. 
She lived sullenly on, in hope that in time he 
would own and receive her ; but the time did 
not come till the change of his manners and 
deprivation of his mind made her tell him, 
when he offered to acknowledge her, that " it 
was too late." She then gave up herself to 
sorrowful resentment, and died under the ty- 
ranny of him, by whom she was in the highest 
degree loved and honoured. 



* It is but justice to the Dean's memory, to refer 
to Mr. Sheridan's defence of him from this charge. 
See tbe « Life of Swift," p. 458.— R. 



What were her claims to this eccentric ten- 
derness, by which the laws of nature were vio- 
lated to retain her, curiosity will inquire ; but 
how shall it be gratified ? Swift was a lover ; 
his testimony may be suspected. Delany and 
the Irish saw with Swift's eyes, and therefore 
add little confirmation. That she was virtuous, 
beautiful, and elegant, in a very high degree, 
such admiration from such a lover makes it 
very probable ; but she had not much literature, 
for she could not spell her own language ; and 
of her wit so loudly vanted, the smart sayings 
which Swift himself has collected, afford no 
splendid specimen. 

The reader of Swift's " Letter to a Lady on 
her Marriage," may be allowed to doubt whe- 
ther his opinion of female excellence ought im- 
plicitly to be admitted ; for, if his general 
thoughts on women were such as he exhibits, 
a very little sense in a lady would enrapture, 
and a very little virtue would astonish him. 
Stella's supremacy, therefore, was perhaps only 
local; she was great, because her associates were 
little. 

In some Remarks lately published on the Life 
of Swift, his marriage is mentioned as fabulous, 
or doubtful ; but, alas ! poor Stella, as Dr. 
Madden told me, related her melancholy story 
to Dr. Sheridan, when he attended her as a 
clergyman to prepare her for death ; and De- 
lany mentions it not with doubt, but only with 
regret. Swift never mentioned her without a 
sigh. The rest of his life was spent in Ireland, 
in a country to which not even power almost 
despotic, nor flattery almost idolatrous, could 
reconcile him. He sometimes wished to visit 
England, but always found some reason of 
delay. He tells Pope, in the decline of life, 
that he hopes once more to see him ; " but if 
not," says he, " we must part, as all human 
beings have parted." 

After the death of Stella, his benevolence was 
contracted, and his severity exasperated ; he 
drove his acquaintance from his table, ai_d won- 
dered why he was deserted. But he continued 
his attention to the public, and wrote, from 
time to time, such directions, admonitions, or 
censures, as the exigency of affairs, in his 
opinion, made proper ; and nothing fell from 
his pen in vain. 

In a short poem on the Presbyterians, whoin 
he always regarded with detestation, he be- 
stowed one stricture upon Bettesworth, a law- 
yer eminent for his insolence to the clergy, 
which, from very considerable reputation, 
brought him into immediate and universal con 
tempt. Bettesworth, enraged at his disgrace 
and loss, went to Swift and demanded whether 
he was the author of that poem ? " Mr. Bettes- 
worth," answered he, " I was in my youth 
acquainted with great lawyers, who, knowing 
my disposition to satn», advised me, that if any 



§60 



SWIFT. 



scoundrel or blockhead whom I had lampooned 
should ask, ' Are you the author of this paper?' 
I should tell him that I was not the author; 
and therefore I tell you, Mr. Bettesworth, that 
I am not the author of these lines." 

Bettesworth was so little satisfied with this 
account, that he publicly professed his resolu- 
tion of a violent and corporal revenge ; but the 
inhabitants of St. Patrick's district embodied 
themselves in the Dean's defence. Bettesworth 
declared in pai'liament, that Swift had deprived 
him of twelve hundred pounds a year. 

Swift was popular awhile by another mode of 
beneficence. He set aside some hundreds to be 
lent in small sums to the poor, from five shil- 
lings, I think, to five pounds. He took no in- 
terest, and only required that, at repayment, a 
small fee should be given to the accomptant: 
but he required that the day of promised pay- 
ment should be exactly kept. A severe and 
punctilious temper is ill qualified for transac- 
tions with the poor ; the day was often broken, 
and the loan was not repaid. This might have 
been easily foreseen; but for this Swift had 
made no provision of patience or pity. He or- 
dered his debtors to be sued. A severe creditor 
has no popular character; what then was likely 
to be said of him who employs the catchpoll 
under the appearance of charity ? The clamour 
against him was loud, and the resentment of 
the populace outrageous; he was therefore 
forced to drop his scheme, and own the folly of 
expecting punctuality from the poor.* 

His asperity continually increasing, con- 
demned him to solitude; and his resentment of 
solitude sharpened his asperity. He was not, 
however, totally deserted ; some men of learn- 
ing, and some women of elegance, often visited 
him ; and he wrote from time to time either 
verse or prose : of his verses he willingly gave 
copies, and is supposed to have felt no discontent 
when he saw them printed. His favourite 
maxim was, " Vive la Bagatelle:" he thought 
trifles a necessary part of life, and perhaps 
found them necessary to himself. It seems im- 
possible to him to be idle, and his disorders 
made it difficult or dangerous to be long se- 
riously studious or laboriously diligent. The 
love of ease is always gaining upon age, and he 
had one temptation to petty amusements pecu- 
liar to himself; whatever he did he was sure to 
hear applauded; and such was his predomi- 
nance over all that approached, that all their 
applauses were probably sincere. He that is 
much flattered soon learns to flatter himself; 
we are commonly taught our duty by fear or 



• This account is contradicted by Mr. Sheridan, 
who with great warmth asserts, from his own know- 
ledge, that there was not one syllable of truth in this 
whole account from the beginning to the end. See 
* Life of Swift." edit. 17 c 4. p. 332.— R, 



shame, and how can they act upon the man 
who hears nothing but his own praises? 

As his years increased, his fits of giddiness 
and deafness grew more frequent, and his deaf- 
ness made conversation difficult : they grew 
likewise more severe, till in 1736, as he was 
writing a poem called " The Legion Club," he 
was seized with a fit so painful and so long con- 
tinued, that he never after thought it proper to 
attempt any work of thought or labour. 

He was always careful of his money, and was 
therefore no liberal entertainer ; but was less 
frugal of his wine than of his meat. When his 
friends of either sex came to him in expectation 
of a dinner, his custom was to give every one a 
shilling, that they might please themselves with 
their provision. At last his avarice grew too 
powerful for his kindness; he would refuse a 
bottle of wine, and in Ireland no man visits 
%vhere he cannot drink. 

Having thus excluded conversation and de- 
sisted from study, he had neither business nor 
amusement ; for having by some ridiculous re- 
solution or mad vow determined never to wear 
spectacles, he could make little use of books in 
his later years ; his ideas, therefore, being nei- 
ther renovated by discourse nor increased by 
reading, wore gradually away, and left his mind 
vacant to the vexations of the hour, till at last 
his anger was heightened into madness. 

He however permitted one book to be pub- 
lished, which had been the production of 
former years; " Polite Conversation," which 
appeared in 1738. The " Directions for Ser- 
vants" was printed soon after his death. These 
two performances show a mind incessantly at- 
tentive, and, when it was not employed upon 
great things, busy with minute occurrences. It 
is apparent that he must have had the habit of 
noting whatever he observed ; for such a num- 
ber of particulars could never have been as- 
sembled by the power of recollection. 

He grew more violent, and his mental powers 
declined till (1741) it was found necessary that 
legal guardians should be appointed of his per- 
son and fortune. He now lost distinction. 
His madness was compounded of rage and fa- 
tuity. The last face that he knew was that of 
Mrs. Whiteway ; and her he ceased to know in 
a little time. His meat was brought him cut 
into mouthfuls ; but he would never touch it 
while the servant stayed, and at last, after it 
had stood perhaps an hour, would eat it walk- 
ing ; for he continued his old habit, and was on 
his feet ten hours a day. 

Next year (1742) he had an inflammation in 
his left eye, which swelled it to the size of an 
egg, with biles in other parts : he was kept 
long waking with the pain, and was not easily 
restrained by five attendants from tearing out 
his eye. 

The tumour at last subsided • and a short in- 



SWIFT. 



261 



terval of reason ensuing, in which he knew his 
physician and his family, gave hopes of his re- 
covery ; but in a few days he sunk into a lethar- 
gic stupidity, motionless, heedless, and speech- 
less. But it is said, that, after a year of total 
silence, when his housekeeper on the 30th of 
November, told him that the usual bonfires and 
illuminations were preparing to celebrate his 
birth-day, he answered, " It is all folly ; they 
had better let it alone." 

It is remembered, that he afterwards spoke 
now and then, or gave some intimation of a 
meaning ; but at last sunk into perfect silence, 
which continued till about the end of October, 
1744, when, in his seventy-eighth year, he ex- 
pired without a struggle. 

When Swift is considered as an author, it is 
just to estimate his powers by their effects. In 
the reign of Queen Anne he turned the stream 
of popularity against the whigs, and must be 
confessed to have dictated for a time the politi- 
cal opinions of the English nation. In the 
succeeding reign he delivered Ireland from 
plunder and oppression ; and showed that wit, 
confederated with truth, had such force as au- 
thority was unable to resist. He said truly of 
himself, that Ireland "was his debtor." It 
was from the time when he first began to pa- 
tronize the Irish that they may date their 
riches and prosperity. He taught them first to 
know thoir own interest, their weight, and 
their strength, and gave them spirit to assert 
that equality with their fellow-subjects, to 
which they have ever since been making vigor- 
ous advances, and to claim those rights which 
they have at last established. Nor can they be 
charged with ingratitude to their benefactor ; 
for they reverenced him as a guardian, and 
obeyed him as a dictator. 

In his works he has given very different spe- 
cimens both of sentiments and expression. *His 
" Tale of a Tub" has little resemblance to his 
other pieces. It exhibits a vehemence and ra- 
pidity of mind, a copiousness of images, and vi- 
vacity of diction, such as he afterwards never 
possessed or never exerted. It is of a mode so 
distinct and peculiar that it must be considered 
by itself; what is true of that, is not true of 
any thing else which he has written. 

In his other works is found an equable tenour 
of easy language, which rather trickles than 
flows. His delight was in simplicity. That 
he has in his works no metaphor, as has been 
said, is not true ; but his few metaphors seem 
to be received rather by necessity than choice. 
He studied purity ; and though perhaps all his 
strictures are not exact, yet it is not often that 
Bolecisms can be found ; and whoever depends 
on his authority may generally conclude him- 
self safe. His sentences are never too much 
dilated or contracted ; and it will not be easy to 
find any embarrassment in the complication of 



his clauses, any inconsequence in his connec- 
tions, or abruptness in his transitions. 

His style was well suited to his thoughts, 
which are never subtilised by nice disquisitions, 
decorated by sparkling conceits, elevated by am- 
bitious sentences, or variegated by far-sought 
learning. He pays no court to the passions ; he 
excites neither surprise nor admiration ; he al- 
ways understands himself, and his reader al- 
ways understands him; the peruser of Swift 
wants little previous knowledge ; it will be suf- 
ficient that he is acquainted with common 
words and common things; he is neither re- 
quired to mount elevations, nor to explore pro- 
fundities ; his passage is always on a level, 
along solid ground, without asperities, without 
obstruction. 

This easy and safe conveyance of meaning it 
was Swift's desire to attain, and for having at- 
tained he deserves praise. For purposes merely 
didactic, when something is to be told that was 
not known before, it is the best mode ; but 
against that inattention by which known truths 
are suffered to lie neglected it makes no provi- 
sion ; it instructs, but does not persuade. 

By his political education he was associated 
with the whigs; but he deserted them when 
they deserted their principles, yet without run- 
ning into the contrary extreme : he continued 
throughout his life to retain the disposition 
which he assigns to the " Church-of- England 
Man," of thinking commonly with the whigs 
of the state and with the tories of the church. 

He was a churchman rationally zealous ; he 
desired the prosperity, and maintained the hon- 
our, of the clergy ; of the dissenters he did not 
wish to infringe the toleration, but he opposed 
their encroachments. 

To his duty as dean he was very attentive. 
He managed the revenues of his church with 
exact economy; and it is said by Delany, that 
more money was, under his direction, laid out 
in repairs, than had ever been in the same time 
since its first erection. Of his choir he was 
eminently careful ; and, though he neither loved 
nor understood music, took care that all the 
singers were well qualified, admitting none 
without the testimony of skilful judges. 

In his church he restored the practice of 
weekly communion, and distributed the sacra- 
mental elements in the most solemn and devout 
manner with his own hand. He came to 
church every morning, preached commonly in 
his turn, and attended the evening anthem, that 
it might not be negligently performed. 

He read the service " rather with a strong, 
nervous voice, than in a graceful manner ; his 
voice was sharp and high-toned, rather than 
harmonious." 

He entered upon the clerical state with hope 
to excel in preaching ; but complained, that 
from the time of his political controversies, " he 
LI 



S62 



SWIFT. 



could only preach pamphlets." This censure 
of himself, if judgment he made from those 
sermons which have heen printed, was unrea- 
sonably severe. 

The suspicions of his irreligion proceeded in 
a great measure from his dread of hypocrisy ; 
instead of wishing to seem better, he delighted 
in seeming worse than he was. He went in 
London to early prayers, lest he should be seen 
at church : he read prayers to his servants every 
morning with such dexterous secrecy, that Dr. 
Delany was six months in his house before he 
knew it. He was not only careful to hide the 
good which he did, but willingly incurred the 
suspicion of evil which he did not. He forgot 
what himself had formerly asserted, that hy- 
pocrisy is less mischievous than open impiety. 
Dr. Delany, with all his zeal for his honour, 
has justly condemned this part of his character. 

The person of Swift had not many recom- 
mendations. He had a kind of muddy com- 
plexion, which, though he washed himself with 
oriental scrupulosity, did not look clear. He 
had a countenance sour and severe, which he 
seldom softened by any appearance of gayety. 
He stubbornly resisted any tendency to laugh- 
ter. 

To his domestics he was naturally rough ; 
and a man of rigorous temper, with that vigil- 
ance of minute attention which his works dis- 
cover, must have been a master that few could 
bear. That he was disposed to do his servants 
good on important occasions, is no great mitiga- 
tion ; benefaction can be but rare, and tyrannic 
peevishness is perpetual. He did not spare the 
servants of others. Once when he dined alone 
with the Earl of Orrery, he said of one that 
waited in the room, " That man has, since we 
sat at table, committed fifteen faults." What 
the faults were, Lord Orrery, from whom I 
heard the story, had not been attentive enough 
to discover. My number may perhaps not be 
exact. 

In his economy he practised a peculiar and 
offensive parsimony, without disguise or apology. 
The practice of saving being once necessary, be- 
came habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and 
at last detestable. But his avarice, though it 
might exclude pleasure, was never suffered to 
encroach upon his virtue. He was frugal by 
inclination, but liberal by principle ; and if the 
purpose to which he destined his little accumu- 
lations be remembered, with his distribution of 
occasional charity, it will perhaps appear, that 
he only liked one mode of expense better than 
another, and saved merely that he might have 
something to give. He did not grow rich by 
injuring his successoi's, but left both Laracor 
and the deanery more valuable than he found 
them.— With all this talk of his covetousness 
and generosity, it should be remembered that 
he was never rich. The revenue of his deanery 



was not much more than seven hundred a 
year. 

His beneficence was not* graced with tender- 
ness or civility ; he relieved without pity, and 
assisted without kindness; so that those who 
were fed by him could hardly love him. 

He made a rule to himself to give hut one 
piece at a time, and therefore always stored his 
pocket with coins of different value. 

Whatever he did, he seemed willing to do in 
a manner peculiar to himself, without suffi- 
ciently considering that singularity, as it im- 
plies a contempt of the general practice, is a 
kind of defiance which justly provokes the hos- 
tility of ridicule; he, therefore, who indulges 
peculiar habits is worse than others, if he be 
not better. 

Of his humour, a story told by Pope* may 
afford a specimen. 

" Dr. Swift has an odd blunt way, that is 
mistaken by strangers for ill-nature.—' Tis so 
odd, that there is no describing it but by facts. 
I'll tell you one that first comes into my head. 
One evening, Gay and I went to see him : you 
know how intimately we were all acquainted. 
On our coming in, ' Heydey, gentlemen, (says 
the Doctor) what's the meaning of this visit ? 
How came you to leave the great lords that 
you are so fond of, to come hither to see a poor 
Dean?' — 'Because we would rather see you 
than any of them.' — ' Ay, any one that did not 
know so well as I do might believe you. But 
since you are come, I must get some supper for 
you, I suppose. ' — ' No, Doctor, we have supped 
already.'—' Supped already! that's impossible ! 
why 'tis not eight o'clock yet.— That's very 
strange; but if you had not supped, I must 
have got something for you. — Let me see, 
what should I have had ? A couple of lobsters ; 
ay, that would have done very well ; two shil- 
ling — tarts, a shilling ; but you will drink a 
glass of wine with me, though you supped so 
much before your usual time only to spare my 
pocket?' — ' No, we had rather talk with you 
than drink with you.' — ' But if you had supped 
with me, as in all reason you ought to have 
done, you must then have drank with me. — A 
bottle of wine, two shillings — two and two is 
four, and one is five; just two and sixpence 
a- piece. There, Pope, there's half-a-crown for 
you, and there's another for you, Sir; for J 
won't save any thing by you I am determined/ 
— This was all said and done with his usiud 
seriousness on such occasions ; and in spite ol 
every thing we could say to the contrary, he 
actually obliged us to take the money." 

In the intercourse of familiar life, he indulged 
his disposition to petulance and sarcasm, and 
thought himself injured if the licentiousness of 



Speucc. 



SWIFT 



263 



his raillery, the freedom of his censures, or the 
petulance of his frolics, was resented or re- 
pressed. He predominated over his companions 
with very high ascendancy, and prohahly would 
bear none over whom he could not predominate. 
To give him advice, was, in the style of his 
friend Delany, " to venture to speak to him." 
This customary superiority soon grew too deli- 
cate for truth; and Swift, with all his pene- 
tration, allowed himself to be delighted with 
low flattery. 

On all common occasions, he habitually affects 
a style of arrogance, and dictates rather than 
persuades. This authoritative and magisterial 
language he expected to he received as his pe- 
culiar mode of jocularity ; but he apparently 
flattered his own arrogance by an assumed im- 
periousness, in which he was ironical only to 
the resentful, and to the submissive sufficiently 
serious. 

He told stories with great felicity, and de- 
lighted in doing what he knew himself to do 
well ; he was therefore captivated by the respec- 
ful silence of a steady listener, and told the same 
tales too often. 

He did not, however, claim the right of talk- 
ing alone; for it was his rule, when he had 
spoken a minute, to give room by a pause for 
any other speaker. Of time, on all occasions, 
he was an exact computer, and knew the mi- 
nutes required to every common operation. 

It may be justly supposed that there was in 
his conversation what appears so frequently in 
his letters, an affectation of familiarity with the 
great, and ambition of momentary equality 
sought and enjoyed by the neglect of those cere- 
monies which custom has established as the bar- 
riers between one order of society and another. 
This transgression of regularity was by himself 
and his admirers termed greatness of soul. But 
a great mind disdains to hold any thing by cour- 
tesy, and therefore never usurps what a lawful 
claimant may take away. He that encroaches 
on another's dignity puts himself in his power ; 
he is either repelled with helpless indignity or 
endured by clemency and condescension. 

Of Swift's general habits of thinking, if his 
letters can be supposed to afford any evidence, 
he was not a man to be either loved or envied. 
He seems to have wasted life in discontent, by 
the rage of neglected pride and the languish- 
men t of unsatisfied desire. He is querulous 
and fastidious, arrogant and malignant ; he 
scarcely speaks of himself but with indignant 
lamentations, or of others but with insolent su- 
periority when he is gay, and with angry con- 
tempt when he is gloomy. From the letters 
that passed between him and Pope it might be 
inferred, that they, with Arbuthnot and Gay, 
had engrossed all the understanding and virtue 
of mankind ; that their merits filled the world, 
or that there was no hope of more. They show 



the age involved in darkness, and shade the pic- 
ture with sullen emulation. 

When the Queen's death drove him into Ire- 
land, he might be allowed to regret for a time 
the interception of his views, the extinction of 
his hopes, and his ejection from gay scenes, im- 
portant employment, and splendid friendships ; 
but when time had enabled reason to prevail 
over vexation, the complaints which at first 
were natural became ridiculous because they 
were useless. But querulousness was now grown 
habitual, and he cried out when he probably 
had ceased to feel. His reiterated wailings per- 
suaded Bolingbroke that he was really willing 
to quit his deanery for an English parish ; • and 
Bolingbroke procured an exchange, which was 
rejected ; and Swift still retained the pleasure 
of complaining. 

The greatest difficulty that occurs, in analys- 
ing his character, is to discover by what de- 
pravity of intellect he took delight in revolving 
ideas from which almost every other mind 
shrinks with disgust. The ideas of pleasure, 
even when criminal, may solicit the imagina- 
tion ; but what has disease, deformity, and filth, 
upon which the thoughts can be allured to 
dwell ? Delany is willing to think that Swift's 
mind was not much tainted with this gross cor- 
ruption before his long visit to Pope. He does 
not consider how he degrades his hero, by mak- 
ing him at fifty-nine the pupil of turpitude, 
and liable to the malignant influence of an as- 
cendant mind. But the truth is, that Gulliver 
had described his Yahoos before the visit ; and 
he that had formed those images had nothing 
filthy to learn. 

I have here given the character of Swift as he 
exhibits himself to my perception ; but now let 
another be heard who knew him better. Dr. 
Delany, after long acquaintance, describes him 
to Lord Orrery in these terms : 

" My Lord, when you consider Swift's sin- 
gular, peculiar, and most variegated vein of wit, 
always intended rightly, although not always 
so rightly directed ; delightful in many in- 
stances, and salutary even where it is most of- 
fensive ; when you consider his strict truth, his 
fortitude in resisting oppression and arbitrary 
power ; his fidelity in friendship ; his sincere 
love and zeal for religion ; his uprightness in 
making right resolutions, and his steadiness in 
adhering to them : his care of his church, its 
choir, its economy, and its income ; his atten- 
tion to all those that preached in his cathedral, 
in order to their amendment in pronunciation 
and style ; as also his remarkable attention to 
the interest of his successors, preferably to his 
own present emoluments ; his invincible patriot- 
ism, even to a country which he did not love ; 
his very various, well-devised, well-judged, and 
extensive charities, throughout his life ; and his 
whole fortune (to say nothing of his wife's) 



264 



BROOME. 



conveyed to the same Christian purposes at his 
death ; charities, from which he could enjoy no 
honour, advantage, or satisfaction, of any kind 
in this world : when you consider his ironical 
and humorous as well as his serious schemes 
for the promotion of true religion and virtue ; 
his success in soliciting for the first-fruits and 
twentieths, to the unspeakable benefit of the es- 
tablished church of Ireland ; and his felicity (to 
rate it no higher) in giving occasion to the 
building of fifty new churches in London— 

" All this considered, the character of his life 
will appear like that of his writings : they will 
both bear to be re-considered and re-examined 
with the utmost attention, and always discover 
new beauties and excellences upon every ex- 
amination. 

" They will bear to be considered as the sun, 
in which the brightness will hide the blemishes; 
and whenever petulant ignorance, pride, malice, 
malignity, or envy, interposes to cloud or sully 
his fame, I take upon me to pronounce, that the 
eclipse will not last long. 

" To conclude— No man ever deserved better 
of any country than Swift did of his ; a steady, 
persevering, inflexible friend ; a wise, a watch- 
ful, and a faithful counsellor ; under many se- 
vere trials and bitter persecutions, to the mani- 
fest hazard both of his liberty and fortune. 

" He lived a blessing, he died a benefactor, 



and his name will ever live an honour, to Ire- 
land." 

In the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is 
not much upon which the critic can exercise his 
powers. They are often humorous, almost 
always light, and have the qualities which re- 
commend such compositions, easiness and gay- 
ety. They are, for the most part, what their 
author intended. The diction is correct, the 
numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact. 
There seldom occurs a hard-laboured expression 
or a redundant epithet ; all his verses exemplify 
his own definition of a good style, they consist 
of " proper words in proper places." 

To divide this collection into classes, and 
show how some pieces are gross and some are 
trifling, would be to tell the reader what he 
knows already, and to find faults of which the 
author could not be ignorant, who certainly 
wrote often not to his judgment, but his 
humour. 

It was said, in a preface to one of the Irish 
editions, that Swift had never been known to 
take a single thought from any writer, ancient 
or modern. This is not literally true ; but per- 
haps no writer can easily be found that has bor- 
rowed so little, or that in all his excellences and 
all his defects has so well maintained his claim 
to be considered as original. 



BROOME. 



William Broome was born in Cheshire, as is 
said, of very mean parents. Of the place of 
his birth or the first part of his life, I have not 
been able to gain any intelligence. He was 
educated upon the foundation at Eton, and was 
captain of the school a whole year, without any 
vacancy by which he might have obtained a 
scholarship at King's College : being by this de- 
lay, such as is said to have happened very rare- 
ly, superannuated, he was sent to St. John's 
College by the contributions of his friends, 
where he obtained a small exhibition. 

At this college he lived for some time in the 
same chamber with the well-known Ford, by 
whom I have formerly heard him described as 
a contracted scholar and a mere versifier, unac- 
quainted with life and unskilful in conversa- 
tion. His addiction to metre was then such, 
that his companions familiarly called him Poet. 
When lie had opportunities of mingling with 



mankind, he cleared himself, as Ford likewise 
owned, from the great part of his scholastic 
rust. 

He appeared early in the world as a transla- 
tor of .the " Iliads" into prose, in conjunction 
with Ozell and Oldisworth. How the several 
parts were distributed is not known. This is 
the translation of which Ozell boasted as supe- 
rior, in Toland's opinion, to that of Pope : it 
has long since vanished, and is now in no dan- 
ger from the critics. 

He was introduced to Mr. Pope, who was 
then visiting Sir John Cotton at Madingley 
near Cambridge, and gained so much of his es- 
teem, that he was employed, I believe, to make 
extracts from Eustathius for the notes to the 
translation of the " Iliad ;" and in the volumes 
of poetry published by Lintot, commonly called 
" Pope's Miscellanies," many of his early pieces 
were inserted. 



BROOME. 



265 



Pope and Broome were to be yet more closely 
connected. When the success of the " Iliad" 
gave encouragement to a version of the " Odys- 
sey," Pope, weary of the toil, called Fenton 
and Broome to his assistance ; and, taking only 
half the work upon himself, divided the other 
half between his partners, giving four books to 
Fenton and eight to Broome. Fenton's books 
I have enumerated in his life : to the lot of 
Broome fell the second, sixth, eighth, eleventh, 
twelfth, sixteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-third, 
together with the burden of wri ting all the notes. 

As this translation is a very important event 
in poetical history, the reader has a right to 
know upon what grounds I establish my narra- 
tion. That the version was not wholly Pope's 
was always known ; he had mentioned the as- 
sistance of two friends in his proposals, and at 
the end of the work some account is given by 
Broome of their different parts, which however 
mentions only five books as written by the 
coadjutors; the fourth and twentieth by Fen- 
ton ; the sixth, the eleventh, and the eighteenth, 
by himself; though Pope, in an advertisement 
prefixed afterwards to a new volume of his 
works, claimed only twelve. A natural curios- 
ity after the real conduct of so great an under- 
taking incited me once to inquire of Dr. War- 
burton, who told me, in his warm language, 
that he thought the relation given in the note 
" a lie ;" but that he was not able to ascertain 
the several shares. The intelligence which Dr. 
Warburton could not afford me I obtained from 
Mr. Langton, to whom Mr. Spence had im- 
parted it. 

The price at which Pope purchased this as- 
sistance was three hundred pounds paid to Fen- 
ton, and five hundred to Broome, with as many 
copies as he wanted for his friends, which 
amounted to one hundred more. The payment 
made to Fenton I know not but by hearsay ; 
Broome's is very distinctly told by Pope, in the 
notes to the " Dunciad." 

It is evident, that, according to Pope's own 
estimate, Broome was unkindly treated. If 
four books could merit three hundred pounds, 
eight and all the notes, equivalent at least to 
four, had certainly a right to more than six. 

Broome probably considered himself as in- 
jured, and there was for some time more than 
coldness between him and his employer. He 
always spoke of Pope as too much a lover of 
money; and Pope pursued him with avowed 
hostility ; for he not only named him disrespect- 
fully in the " Dunciad," but quoted him more 
than once in the " Bathos," as a proficient in 
the " Art of Sinking;" and in hi3 enumeration 
of the different kinds of poets distinguished for 
the profound, he reckons Broome among " the 
parrots who repeat another's words in such a 
hoarse odd tone as makes them seem their own." 
I have been told that thev were afterwards re- 



conciled ; but I am afraid their peace was with- 
out friendship. 

He afterwards published a Miscellany of 
Poems, which is inserted, with corrections, iu 
the late compilation. 

He never rose to a very high dignity in the 
church. He was some time rector of Sturston 
in Suffolk, where he married a wealthy widow ; 
and afterwards, when the king visited Cam- 
bridge (1728) became doctor of laws. He was 
(in August 1728) presented by the crown to the 
rectory of Pulham in Norfolk, which he held 
with Oakley Magna in Suffolk, given him by 
the Lord Cornwallis, to whom he was chaplain, 
who added the vicarage of Eye in Suffolk ; he then 
resigned Pulham, and retained the other two. 

Towards the close of his life he grew again 
poetical, and amused himself with translating 
Odes of Anacreon, which he published in the 
" Gentleman's Magazine" under the name of 
Chester. 

He died at Bath, November 16, 1745, and was 
buried in the Abbey Church. 

Of Broome, though it cannot be said that he 
was a great poet, it would be unjust to deny 
that he was an excellent versifier ; his lines are 
smooth and sonorous, and his diction is select 
and elegant. His rhymes are sometimes un- 
suitable ; in his " Melancholy," he makes breath 
rhyme to birth in one place, and to earth in 
another. Those faults occur but seldom ; and 
he had such power of words and numbers as 
fitted him for translation ; but in his original 
woi'ks, recollection seems to have been his busi- 
ness more than invention. His imitations are 
so apparent, that it is a part of his reader's em- 
ployment to recall the verses of some former 
poet. Sometimes he copies the most popular 
writers, for he seems scarcely to endeavour at 
concealment ; and sometimes he picks up frag- 
ments in obscure corners. His lines to Fenton, 

Serene, the sting of pain thy thoughts beguile, 
And make afflictions objects of a smile, 

brought to my mind some lines on the death 
of Queen Mary, written by Barnes, of whom 
I should not have expected to find an imitator : 

Bat thou, O Muse ! whose sweet nepenthean tongne 
Can charm the pangs of death with deathless song, 
Can'st stinging -plagues with easy thoughts beguile, 
Make pains and tortures objects of a smile. 

To detect his imitations were tedious and use- 
less. What he takes he seldom makes worse ; 
and he cannot be justly thought a mean man 
whom Pope chose for an associate, and whose 
co-operation was considered by Pope's enemies 
as so important, that he was attacked by Henley 
with this ludicrous distich : 

Pope came off clean with Homer ; but they say 
Broome wcut before, and kindly swept the wa^y. 



266 



POPE. 



POPE. 



Alexander Pope was born in London,* May 
22, 1688, of parents whose rank or station was 
never ascertained : we are informed that they 
were of " gentle blood ;" that his father was of 
a family of which the Earl of Downe was the 
head ; and that his mother was the daughter of 
William Turner, Esquire, of York> who had 
likewise three sons, one of whom had the hon- 
our of being killed, and the other of dying in 
the service of Charles the First ; the third was 
made a general officer in Spain, from whom the 
sister inherited what sequestrations and for- 
feitures had left in the family. 

This, and this only, is told by Pope, who is 
more willing, as I have heard observed, to show 
what his father was not, than what he was. 
It is allowed that he grew rich by trade ; but 
whether in a shop or on the exchange, was ne- 
ver discovered till Mr. Tyers told, on the au- 
thority of Mrs. Racket, that he was a linen- 
draper in the Strand. Both parents were 
papists. 

Pope was from his birth of a constitution 
tender and delicate ; but is said to have shown 
remarkable gentleness and sweetness of disposi- 
tion. The weakness of his body continued 
through his life ;f but the mildness of his mind 
perhaps ended with his childhood. His voice, 
when he was young, was so pleasing, that he 
was called in fondness "the little Nightingale." 

Being not sent early to school, he was taught 
to read by an aunt ; and when he was seven or 
eight years old becams a lover of books. He 
first learned to write by imitating printed 
books ; a species of penmanship in which he re- 
tained great excellence through bis whole life, 
though his ordinary hand was not elegant. 

When he was about eight, he was placed in 
Hampshire, under Taverner, a Romish priest, 
who, by a method very rarely practised, taught 
him the Greek and Latin rudiments together. 
He was now first regularly initiated in poetry 
by the perusal of " Ogilby's Homer" and 



* In Lombard-street, according to Dr. Warton. — C. 

t This weakness was so great, that be constantly 
wore stays, as I have been assured by a waterman 
at Twickenham, who, in lifting him into his boat, 
had often felt them. His method of taking the air 
on the water was to have a sedan chair in the boat, 
iu which he sat with the glasses down. — H. 



" Sandys' Ovid." Ogilby's assistance he never 
repaid with any praise ; but of Sandys, he de- 
clared, in his notes to the " Iliad," that Eng- 
lish poetry owed much of its beauty to his trans- 
lation. Sandys very rarely attempted original 
composition. 

From the care of Taverner, under whom his 
proficiency was considerable, he was removed 
to a school at Twyford, near Winchester, and 
again to another school, about Hyde-park Cor- 
ner ; from which he used sometimes to stroll to 
the playhouse, and was so delighted with thea- 
trical exhibition, that he formed a kind of play 
from " Ogilby's Iliad," with some verses of 
his own intermixed, which he persuaded his 
schoolfellows to act, with the addition of his 
master's gardener, who personated Ajax. 

At the two last schools he used to represent 
himself as having lost part of what Taverner 
had taught him ; and on his master at Twyford 
he had already exercised his poetry in a lam- 
poon. Yet under those masters he translated 
more than a fourth part of the " Metamorpho- 
ses." If he kept the same proportion in his 
other exercises, it cannot be thought that his 
loss was great. 

He tells of himself, in his poems, that " he 
lisped in numbers;" and used to say that he 
could not remember the time when he be- 
gan to make verses. In the style of fiction it 
might have been said of him as of Pindar, that, 
when he lay in his cradle, " the bees swarmed 
about his mouth." 

About the time of the Revolution, his father, 
who was undoubtedly disappointed by the sud- 
den blast of popish prosperity, quitted his trade, 
and retired to Binfield in Windsor Forest, with 
about twenty thousand pounds; for which, 
being conscientiously determined not to entrust 
it to the government, he found no better use 
than that of locking it up in a chest, and tak- 
ing from it what his expenses required : and his 
life was long enough to consume a great part of 
it before his son came to the inheritance. 

To Binfield, Pope was called by his father 
when he was about twelve years old ; and there 
he had, for a few months, the assistance of one 
Deane, another priest, of. whom he learned 
only to construe a little of " Tully's Offices." 
How Mr. Deane could spend, with a boy who 
had translated so much of Ovid, some months 



POPE. 



267 



over a small part of " Tully's Offices," it is 
now vain to inquire. 

Of a youth so successfully employed, and so 
conspicuously improved, a minute account must 
be naturally desired ; but curiosity must be con- 
tented with confused, imperfect, and sometimes 
improbable intelligence. Pope, finding little 
advantage from external help, resolved thence- 
forward to direct himself, and at twelve formed 
a plan of study, which he completed with little 
other incitement than the desire of excellence. 

He primary and principal purpose was to be 
a poet, with which his father accidentally con- 
curred, by proposing subjects, and obliging him 
to correct his performances by many revisals ; 
after which, the old gentleman, when he was 
satisfied, would say, " these are good rhymes." 

In his perusal of the English poets he soon 
distinguished the versification of Dryden, which 
he considered as the model to be studied, and 
was impressed with such veneration for his in- 
structor, that he persuaded some friends to take 
him to the coffee-house which Dryden fre- 
quented, and pleased himself with having seen 
him. 

Dryden died May 1, 1701, some days before 
Pope was twelve; so early must he therefore 
have felt the power of harmony and the zeal of 
genius. Who does not wish that Dryden could 
have known the value of the homage that -was 
paid him, and foreseen the greatness of his 
young admirer ? 

The earliest of Pope's productions is his 
" Ode on Solitude," written before he was 
twelve, in which there is nothing more than 
other forward boys have attained, and which is 
not equal to Cowley's performances at the same 
age. 

His time was now wholly spent in reading 
and writing. As he read the classics, he amused 
himself with translating them ; and at fourteen 
made a version of the first book of " The The- 
bais," which, with some revision, he afterwards 
published. He must have been at this time, if 
he had no help, a considerable proficient in the 
Latin tongue. 

By Dryden's Fables, which had then been 
not long published, and were much in the hands 
of poetical readers, he was tempted to try his 
own skill in giving Chaucer a more fashionable 
appearance, and put " January and May," and 
the " Prologue of the Wife of Bath," into mo- 
dern English. He translated likewise the 
epistle of " Sappho to Phaon," from Ovid, to 
complete the version which was before imper- 
fect ; and wrote some other small pieces, which 
he afterwards printed. 

He sometimes imitated the English poets, 
and professed to have written at fourteen his 
poem upon " Silence," after Rochester's " No- 
thing." He had now formed his versification, 
and the smoothness of his numbers surpassed his 



[ original ; but this is a small part of his praise; 
he discovers such acquaintance both with hu- 
man life and public affairs, as is not easily con- 
ceived to have been attainable by a boy of four- 
teen in Windsor Forest. 

Next year he was desirous of opening to him- 
self new sources of knowledge, by making him- 
self acquainted with modern languages; and 
removed for a time to London, that he might 
study French and Italian, which, as he desired 
nothing more than to read them, were by dili- 
gent application soon despatched. Of Italian 
learning he does not appear to have ever made 
much use in his subsequent studies. 

He then returned to Binfield, and delighted 
himself with his own poetry. He tried all 
styles and many subjects. He wrote a comedy, 
a tragedy, an epic poem, with panegyrics on all 
the princes of Europe; and, as he confesses, 
" thought himself the greatest genius that ever 
was." Self-confidence is the first requisite to 
great undertakings. He, indeed, who forms 
his opinion of himself in solitude without 
knowing the powers of other men, is very liable 
to error ; but it was the felicity of Pope to rate 
himself at his real value. 

Most of his puerile productions were, by his 
maturer judgment, afterwards destroyed. " Al- 
cander," the epic poem, was burnt by the per- 
suasion of Atterbury. The tragedy was founded 
on the legend of St. Genevieve. Of the comedy 
there is no account. 

Concerning his studies it is related, that he 
translated " Tully on Old Age;" and that be- 
sides his books of poetry and criticism, he read 
" Temple's Essays" and " Locke on Human 
Understanding." His reading, though his fa- 
vourite authors are not known, appears to have 
been sufficiently extensive and multifarious; 
for his early pieces show, with sufficient evi- 
dence, his knowledge of books. 

He that is pleased with himself easily ima- 
gines that he shall please others. Sir William 
Trumbull, who had been ambassador at Con- 
stantinople, and secretary of state, when he re- 
tired from business, fixed his residence in the 
neighbourhood of Binfield. Pope, not yet six- 
teen, was introduced to the statesman of sixty, 
and so distinguished himself, that their inter- 
views ended in friendship and correspondence. 
Pope was, through his whole life, ambitious of 
splendid acquaintance ; and he seems to have 
wanted neither diligence nor success in attract- 
ing the notice of the great ; for, from his first 
entrance into the world, and his entrance was 
very early, he was admitted to familiarity with 
those whose rank or station made them most 
conspicuous. 

From the age of sixteen the life of Pope, as 
an author, may be properly computed. He 
now wrote his pastorals, which were shown to 
the poets and critics of that time ; as they well 



268 



POPE. 



deserved, they were read with admiration, and 
many praises were bestowed upon them and 
upon the Preface, which is both elegant and 
learned in a high degree ; they were, however, 
not published till five years afterwards. 

Cowley, Milton, and Pope, are distinguished 
among the English poets by the early exertion 
of their powers ; but the works of Cowley alone 
were published in his childhood, and therefore 
of him only can it be certain that his puerile 
performances received no improvement from 
his maturer studies. 

At this time began his acquaintance with 
Wycherley, a man who seems to have had 
among his contemporaries his full share of re- 
putation, to have been esteemed without virtue, 
and caressed without good humour. Pope was 
proud of his notice; Wycherley wrote verses 
in his praise, which he was charged by Dennis 
with writing to himself, and they agreed for 
awhile to flatter one another. It is pleasant to 
remark how soon Pope learned the cant of an 
author, and began to treat critics with con- 
tempt, though he had yet suffered nothing from 
them. 

But the fondness of Wycherley was too vio- 
lent to last. His esteem of Pope was such, that 
he submitted some poems to his revision ; and 
when Pope, perhaps proud of such confidence, 
was sufficiently bold in his criticisms and 
liberal in his alterations, the old scribbler was 
angry to see his pages defaced, and felt more 
pain. from the detection, than content from the 
amendment of his faults. They parted; but 
Pope always considered him with kindness, 
and visited him a little time before he died. 

Another of his early correspondents was Mr. 
Cromwell of whom I have learned nothing par- 
ticular but that he used to ride a hunting in a 
tyewig. He was fond, and perhaps vain, of 
amusing himself with poetry and criticism; 
and sometimes sent his performances to Pope, 
who did not forbear such remarks as were now 
and then unwelcome. Pope, in his turn, put 
the juvenile version of " Statius" into his hands 
for correction. 

Their correspondence afforded the public its 
first knowledge of Pope's epistolary powers ; for 
his Letters were given by Cromwell to one 
Mrs. Thomas ; and she many years afterwards 
sold them to Curll, who inserted them in a vo- 
lume of his Miscellanies. 

Walsh, a name yet preserved among the minor 
poets, was one of his first encouragers. His re- 
gard was gained by the Pastorals, and from him 
Pope received the counsel by which he seems to 
have regulated his studies. Walsh advised him 
to correctness, which, as he told him, the Eng- 
lish poets had hitherto neglected, and which 
therefore was left to him as a basis of fame : 
and, being delighted with rural poems, recom- 
mended to .him to write a pastoral comedy, like 



those which are read so eagerly in Italy ; a de- 
sign which Pope probably did not approve, as 
he did not follow it. 

Pope had now declared himself a poet ; and, 
thinking himself entitled to poetical conversa- 
tion, began at seventeen to frequent Will's, a 
coffee-house on the north side of Russell-street 
in Covent-garden, where the wits of that time 
used to assemble, and where Dryden had, 
when he lived, been accustomed to preside. 

During this period of his life he was indefa- 
tigably diligent and insatiably curious; want* 
ing health for violent and money for expensive 
pleasures ; and having excited in himself very 
strong desires of intellectual eminence, he 
spent much of his time over his books; but 
he read only to store his mind with facts and 
images, seizing all that his authors presented 
with undistinguishable voracity, and with an 
appetite for knowledge too eager to be nice. In 
a mind like his, however, all the faculties were 
at once involuntarily improving. Judgment is 
forced upon us by experience. He that reads 
many books must compare one opinion or one 
style with another; and, when he compares, 
must necessarily distinguish, reject, and prefer. 
But the account given by himself of his studies 
was, that from fourteen to twenty he read only 
for amusement, from twenty to twenty-seven 
for improvement and instruction; that in the 
first part of this time he desired only to know, 
and in the second he endeavoured to judge. 

The Pastorals, which had been for some time 
handed about among poets and critics, were at 
last printed (1709) in Tonson's " Miscellany," 
in a volume which began with the Pastorals of 
Philips and ended with those of Pope. 

The same year was written the " Essay on 
Criticism ;" a work which displays such extent 
of comprehension, such nicety of distinction, 
such acquaintance with mankind, and such 
knowledge both of ancient and modern learn- 
ing, as are not often attained by the maturest 
age and longest experience. It was published 
about two years afterwards ; and, being praised 
by Addison in " The Spectator"* with suffi- 
cient liberality, met with so much favour as en- 
raged Dennis, " who," he says, "found himself 
attacked, without any manner of provocation 
on his side, and attacked in his person, instead 
of his writings, by one who was wholly a stran- 
ger to him, at a time when all the world knew 
he was persecuted by fortune ; and not only 
saw that this was attempted in a clandestine 
manner, with the utmost falsehood and calum- 
ny, but found that all this was done by a little 



* No. 253. But, according to Dr. Warton, Pope 
was displeased at one passage, in which Addison 
censures the admission of " seme strokes of ill-na 

tare."— C. 



POPE. 



269 



affected hypocrite, who had nothing in his 
mouth at the same time but truth, candour, 
friendship, good-nature, humanity, and mag- 
nanimity." 

How the attack was clandestine >is not easily 
perceived, nor how his person is depreciated ; 
but he seems to have known something of 
Pope's character, in whom may be discovered 
an appetite to talk too frequently of his own 
virtues. 

The pamphlet is such as rage might be ex- 
pected to dictate. He supposes himself to be 
asked two questions ; whether the Essay will 
succeed, and who or what is the author. 

Its success he admits to be secured by the 
false opinions then prevalent; the author he 
concludes to be " young and raw." 

" First, because he discovers a sufficiency be- 
yond his little ability, and hath rashly under- 
taken a task infinitely above his force. Second- 
ly, while this little author struts, and affects the 
dictatorian air, he plainly shows, that at the 
same time he is under the rod ; and, while he 
pretends to give laws to others, is a pedantic 
slave to authority and opinion. Thirdly, he 
hath, like schoolboys, borrowed both from liv- 
ing and dead. Fourthly, he knows not his 
own mind, and frequently contradicts him- 
self. Fifthly, he is almost perpetually in the 
wrong." 

All these positions he attempts to prove by 
quotations and remarks; but his desire to do 
mischief is greater than his power. He has, 
however, justly criticised some passages in these 
lines : 

There are whom heaven has bless'd with stoi-e of 

wit, 
Yet want as much again to manage it ; 
For Wit and Judgment ever are at strife — 

It is apparent that wit has two meanings, 
and that what is wanted, though called wit, is 
truly judgment. So far Dennis is undoubtedly 
right : but not content with argument, he will 
have a little mirth, and triumphs over the first 
couplet in terms too elegant to be forgotten. 
" By the way, what rare numbers are here ! 
Would not one swear that this youngster had 
espoused some antiquated muse, who had sued 
out a divorce on account of impotence from 
some superannuated sinner ; and, having been 
poxed by her former spouse, has got the gout 
in her decrepit age, which makes her hobble so 
damnably?" This was the man who would 
reform a nation sinking into barbarity. 

In another place Pope himself allowed that 
Dennis had detected one of those blunders 
which are called " bulls." The first edition 
had this line : 

What is this wit — 

Where wanted, scorn'd ; and envied where acquired ? 



" How," says the criti *, a can wit be scorned 
where it is not ? Is not this a figure frequently 
employed in Hibernian land ? The person that 
wants this wit may indeed be scorned, but the 
scorn shows the honour which the contemner 
has for wit." Of this remark Pope made the 
proper use, by correcting the passage. 

I have preserved, I think, all that is reason- 
able in Dennis's criticism ; it remains that jus- 
tice be done to his delicacy. " For his ac- 
quaintance (says Dennis) he names Mr. Walsh, 
who had by no means the qualification which 
this author reckons absolutely necessary to a 
critic, it being very certain that he was, like 
this Essayer, a very indifferent poet; he loved 
to be well dressed ; and I remember a little 
young gentleman whom Mr. Walsh used to 
take into his company, as a double foil to his 
person and capacity. Inquire, between Sun- 
ninghill and Oakenham, for a young, short, 
squab gentleman, the very bow of the god of 
love, and tell me whether he be a proper author 
to make personal reflections ?— He may extol 
the ancients, but he has reason to thank the 
gods that he was born a modern; for had he 
been born of Grecian parents, and his father 
consequently had by law had the absolute dispo- 
sal of him, his life had been no longer than that 
of one of his poems, the life of half a day.- — 
Let the person of a gentleman of his parts be 
never so contemptible, his inward man is ten 
times more ridiculous ; it being impossible that 
his outward form, though it be that of down- 
right monkey, should differ so much from hu- 
man shape, as his unthinking immaterial part 
does from human understanding. " Thus began 
the hostility between Pope and Dennis, which, 
though it was suspended for a short time, never 
was appeased. Pope seems at first, to have at- 
tacked him wantonly ; but, though he always 
professed to despise him, he discovers, by men- 
tioning him very often, that he felt his force or 
his venom. 

Of this essay, Pope declared, that he did not 
expect the sale to be quick, because " not one 
gentleman in sixty, even of liberal education, 
could understand it." The gentlemen and the 
education of that time seem to have been of a 
lower character than they are of this. He 
mentioned a thousand copies as a numerous im- 
pression. 

Dennis was not his only censurer : the zeal- 
ous papists thought the monks treated with too 
much contempt, and Erasmus too studiously 
praised ; but to these objections he had not 
much regard. 

The Essay has been translated into French by 
Hamilton, author of the " Comte de Gram- 
mont," whose version was never printed, by 
Robotham, secretary to the King for Hanover, 
and by Resnel ; and commented by Dr. War- 
burton, who has discovered in it such order and 
Mm 



270 



POPE. 



connection as was not perceived by Addison, 
nor, as is said, intended by the author. 

Almost every poem consisting of precepts is 
so far arbitrary and immethodical, that many 
of the paragraphs may change places with no 
apparent inconvenience ; for of two or more po- 
sitions depending upon some remote and general 
principle there is seldom any cogent reason why 
one should precede the other. But for the 
order in which they stand, whatever it be, a 
little ingenuity may easily give a reason. " It 
is possible," says Hooker, " that by long cir- 
cumduction, from any one truth all truth may 
be inferred." Of all homogeneous truths, at 
least of all truths respecting the same general 
end, in whatever series they may be produced, 
a concatenation by intermediate ideas may be 
formed, such as, when it is once shown, shall 
appear natural ; but if this order be reversed, 
another mode of connection equally specious 
may be found or made. Aristotle is praised for 
naming Fortitude first of the cardinal virtues, 
as that without which no other virtue can 
steadily be practised ; but he might, with equal 
propriety, have placed Prudence and Justice 
before it, since without Prudence, Fortitude is 
mad ; without Justice it is mischievous. 

As the end of method is perspicuity, that se- 
ries is sufficiently regular that avoids obscurity, 
and where there is no obscurity, it will not be 
difficult to discover method. 

In " The Spectator" was published the Mes- 
siah, which he first submitted to the perusal 
of Steele, and corrected in compliance with his 
criticisms. 

It is reasonable to infer, from his Letters, that 
the " Verses on the Unfortunate Lady" were 
written about the time when his Essay was 
published. The lady's name and adventures I 
have sought with fruitless inquiry.* 

I can therefore tell no more than I have 
learned from Mr. Ruffhead, who writes with 
the confidence of one who could trust his in- 
formation. She was a woman of eminent ranis 
and large fortune, the ward of an uncle, who, 
having given her a proper education, expected 
like other guardians that she should make at 
least an equal match ; and such he proposed to 
her, but found it rejected in favour of a young 
gentleman of inferior condition. 

Having discovered the correspondence be- 
tween the two lovers, and finding the young 
lady determined to abide by her own choice, he 
supposed that separation might do what can 
rarely be done by arguments, and sent her into 
a foreign country, where she was obliged to con- 
verse only with those from whom her uncle 
Had nothing to fear. 

Her lover took care to repeat his vows ; but 



« See Gent. Mag. vol. li.p. 3!4.— N. 



his letter „cre intercepted and carried to ner 
guardian, who directed her to be watched with 
still greater vigilance, till of this restraint she 
grew so impatient, that she bribed a woman 
servant to procure her a sword, which she di- 
rected to her heart. 

From this account, given with evident inten- 
tion to raise the lady's character, it does not ap- 
pear that she had any claim to praise, nor much 
to compassion. She seems to have been impa- 
tient, violent, and ungovernable. Her uncle's 
power could not have lasted long ; the hour of 
liberty and choice would have come in time. 
But her desires were too hot for delay, and she 
liked self murder better than suspense. 

Nor is it discoversd that the uncle, whoever 
he was, is with much justice delivered to pos- 
terity as " a false Guardian;" he seems to have 
done only that for which a guardian is appoint- 
ed ; he endeavoured to direct his niece till she 
should be able to direct herself. Poetry has not 
often been worse employed than in dignifying 
the amorous fury of a raving girl. 

Not long after, he wrote " The Rape of the 
Lock," the most airy, the most ingenious, and 
the most delightful of all his compositions, oc- 
casioned by a frolic of gallantry, rather too fa- 
miliar, in which Lord Petre cut off a lock of 
Mrs. Arabella Fermor's hair. This, whether 
stealth or violence, was so much resented, that 
the commerce of the two families, before very 
friendly, was interrupted. Mr. Caryl, a gen- 
tleman who, being secretary to King James's 
queen, had followed his mistress into France, 
and who, being the author of " Sir Solomon 
Single," a comedy, and some translations, was 
entitled to the notice of a wit, solicited Pope to 
endeavour a reconciliation by a ludicrous poem, 
which might bring both the parties to a better 
temper. In compliance with Caryl's request, 
though his name was for a long time marked 
only by the first and last letters, C — 1, a poem 
of two cantos was written (1711), as is said, in 
a fortnight, and sent to the offended lady, who 
liked it well enough to show it ; and, with the 
usual process of literary transactions, the au- 
thor, dreading a surreptitious edition, was 
forced to publish it. 

The event is said to have been such as was 
desired, the pacification and diversion of all to 
whom it related, except Sir George Brown, 
who complained with some bitterness, that, in 
the character of Sir Plume, he was made to talk 
nonsense. Whether all this be true 1 have 
some doubt ; for at Paris, a few years ago, a 
niece of Mrs. Fermor, who presided in an 
English convent, mentioned Pope's work with 
very little gratitude, rather as an insult than an 
honour ; and she may be supposed to have in- 
herited the opinion of her family. 

At its first appearance it was termed by Ad- 
dison mcram sal. Pope, however, saw that it 



POPE. 



271 



was capable of improvement ; and, having luck- 
ily contrived to borrow his machinery from the 
Rosicrucians, imparted the scheme with which 
his head was teeming to Addison, who told him 
that his work as it stood, was " a delicious 
little thing," and gave him no encouragement 
to retouch it. 

This has been too hastily considered as an in- 
stance of Addison's jealousy ; for, as he could 
not guess the conduct of the new design, or the 
possibilities of pleasure comprised in a fiction of 
which there had been no examples, he might 
very reasonably and kindly persuade the author 
to acquiesce in his own prosperity, and forbear 
an attempt which he considered as an unneces- 
sary hazard. 

Addison's counsel was happily rejected. Pope 
foresaw the future efflorescence of imagery then 
budding in his mind, and resolved to spare no 
art or industry of cultivation. The soft luxu- 
riance of his fancy was already shooting, and 
all the gay varieties of diction were ready at his 
hand to colour and embellish it. 

His attempt was justified by its success. 
" The Rape of the Lock" stands forward, in 
the classes of literature, as the most exquisite 
example of ludicrous poetry. Berkeley con- 
gratulated him upon the display of powers 
more truly poetical than he had shown before : 
with elegance of description, and justness of 
precepts, he had now exhibited boundless fer- 
tility of invention. 

He always considered the intermixture of the 
machinery with the action as his most success- 
ful exertion of poetical art. He indeed could 
never afterwards produce any thing of such un- 
exampled excellence. Those performances which 
strike with wonder are combinations of skilful 
genius with happy casualty ; and it is not likely 
that any felicity like the discovery of a new race 
of preternatural agents should happen twice to 
the same man. 

Of this poem the author was, I thin,k, al- 
lowed to enjoy the praise for a long time with- 
out disturbance. Many years afterwards, Den- 
nis published some remarks upon it, with very 
little force, and with no effect ; for the opinion 
of the public was already settled, and it was no 
longer at the mercy of criticism. 

About this time he published " The Temple 
of Fame," which, as he tells Steele in their 
correspondence, he had written two years be- 
fore ; that is, when he was only twenty-two 
years old, an early time of life for so much 
learning and so much observation a3 that work 
exhibits. 

On this poem Dennis afterwards published 
some remarks, of which the most reasonable is, 
that some of the lines represent Motion as ex- 
hibited by Sculpture. 

Of the epistle from " Eloisa to Abelard," I 
do not know the date. His first inclination to 



attempt a composition of that tender kind arose, 
as Mr. Savage told me, from his perusal of 
Prior's " Nutbrown Maid." How much he 
has surpassed Prior's work it is not necessary 
to mention, when perhaps it may be said with 
justice, that he has excelled every composition 
of the same kind.. The mixture of religious 
hope and resignation gives an elevation and dig- 
nity to disappointed love which images merely 
natural cannot bestow. The gloom of a con- 
vent strikes the imagination with far greater 
force than the solitude of a grove. 

This piece was, however, not much his fa- 
vourite in his latter years, though I never heard 
upon what principle he slighted it. 

In the next year (1713) he published " Wind- 
sor Forest;" of which part was, as he relates, 
written at sixteen, about the same time as his 
Pastorals, and the latter part was added after- 
wards : where the addition begins, we are not 
told. The lines relating to the peace confess 
their own date. It is dedicated to Lord Lans- 
downe, who was then high in reputation and 
influence among the tories ; and it is said, that 
the conclusion of the poem gave great pain to 
Addison, both as a poet and a politician. Re- 
ports like this are always spread with boldness 
very disproportionate to their evidence. Why 
should Addison receive any particular disturb- 
ance from the last lines of " Windsor Forest ?' ' 
If contrariety of opinion could poison a politi- 
cian, he would not live a day ; and, as a poet, 
he must have felt Pope's force of genius much 
more from many other parts of his works. 

The pain that Addison might feel it is not 
likely that he would confess ; and it is cer- 
tain that he so well suppressed his discontent, 
that Pope now thought himself his favourite ; 
for, having been consulted in the revisal of 
" Cato," he introduced it by a Prologue; and, 
when Dennis published his Remarks, under- 
took, not indeed to vindicate, but to revenge his 
friend, by a " Narrative of the Frenzy of John 
Dennis." 

There is reason to believe that Addison gave 
no encouragement to this disingenuous hostility; 
for, says Pope, in a letter to him, " indeed 
your opinion, that it is entirely to be neglected, 
would be my own in my own case; but I felt 
more warmth here than I did when I first saw 
his book against myself (though indeed in two 
minutes it made me heartily merry)." Addi- 
son was not a man on whom such cant of sen - 
sibility could make much impression. He left 
the pamphlet to itself, having disowned it to 
Dennis, and perhaps did not think Pope to have 
deserved much by his officiousness. 

This year was pi'inted in " The Guardian" 
the ironical comparison between the Pastorals 
of Philips and Pope ; a composition of artifice, 
criticism, and literature, to which nothing equal 
will easily be found. The superiority of Pops 



™^B 



272 



P O P E. 



Is so ingeniously dissembled, and the feeble lines 
of Philips so skilfully preferred, that Steele, 
feeing deceived, was unwilling to print the pa- 
■per, lest Pope should be offended. Addison 
immediately saw the writer's design ; and, as 
it seems, had malice enough to conceal his dis- 
covery, and to permit a publication which, by 
making his friend Philips ridiculous, made him 
for ever an enemy to Pope. 

It appears that about this time Pope had a 
strong inclination to unite the art of painting 
with that of poetry, and put himself under the 
tuition of Jervas. He was near-sighted, and 
therefore not formed by nature for a painter; 
he tried, however, how far he could advance, 
and sometimes persuaded his friends to sit. A 
picture of Betterton, supposed to be drawn by 
him, was in the possession of Lord Mansfield : * 
if this was taken from the life, he must have 
begun to paint earlier ; for Betterton was now 
dead. Pope's ambition of this new art pro- 
duced some encomiastic verses to Jervas, which 
certainly show his power as a poet ; but I have 
been told that they betray his ignorance of 
painting. 

He appears to have regarded Betterton with 
kindness and esteem ; and after his death pub- 
lished, under his name, a version into modern 
English of Chaucer's Prologues, and one of his 
Tales, which, as was related by Mr. Harte, 
■were believed to have been the performance of 
Pope himself by Fenton, who made him a gay 
offer of five pounds,, if he would show them in 
the hand of Betterton. 

The next year (1713) produced a bolder at- 
tempt, by which pi'ofit was sought as well as 
praise. The poems which he had hitherto 
written, however they might have diffused his 
name, had made very little addition to his for- 
tune. The allowance which his father made 
him, though, proportioned to what he had, it 
might be liberal, could not be large ; his reli- 
gion hindered him from the occupation of any 
civil employment; and he complained that he 
wanted even money to buy books. f 

He therefore resolved to try how far the fa- 
vour of the public extended, by soliciting a sub- 
scription to a version of the " Iliad," with large 
notes. 

To print by subscription was, for some time, 
a practice peculiar to the English. The first 
considerable work for which this expedient was 
employed is said to have been Dryden's " Vir- 
gil;"! an( * ** fta( l ceen tried again with suc- 



* It is still at Caen Wood.— N. 

t Spence. 

j Earlier than this, viz. in 1688, Milton's " Para- 
dise Lost" had been published with great success by 
subscription, in folio, under the patronage of Mr. 
(afterwards Lord) Someis. — R. 



cess when the " Ta tiers" were collected into 
volumes. 

There was reason to believe that Pope's at- 
tempt would be successful. He was in the full 
bloom of reputation, and was personally known 
to almost all whom dignity of employment, or 
splendour of reputation, had made eminent ; he 
conversed indifferently with both parties, and 
never disturbed the public with his political 
opinions ; and it might be naturally expected, 
as each faction then boasted its literary zeal, 
that the great men, who on other occasions 
practised all the violence of opposition, would 
emulate each other in their encouragement of a 
poet who had delighted all, and by whom none 
had been offended. 

With those hopes he offered an English 
" Iliad" to subscribers, in six volumes in quar- 
to, for six guineas; a sum, according to the 
value of money at that time, by no means in- 
considerable, and greater than I believe to have 
been ever asked before. His proposal, however, 
was very favourably received ; and the patrons 
of literature were busy to recommend his un- 
dertaking and promote his interest. Lord Ox- 
ford, indeed, lamented that such a genius should 
be wasted upon a work not original ; but pro- 
posed no means by which he might live with- 
out it. Addison recommended caution and 
moderation, and advised him not to be content 
with the praise of half the nation, when he 
might be universally favoured. 

The greatness of the design, the popularity of 
the author, and the attention of the literary 
world, naturally raised such expectations of the 
future sale, that the booksellers made their of- 
fers with great eagerness ; but the highest bid- 
der was Bernard Lintot, who became proprie- 
tor, on condition of supplying at his own 
expense all the copies which were to be delivered 
to subscribers or presented to friends, and pay- 
ing two hundred pounds for every volume. 

Of the quartos it was, I believe, stipulated 
that none should be printed but for the author, 
that the subscription might not be depreciated ; 
but Lintot impressed the small pages upon a 
small folio, and paper perhaps a little thinner; 
and sold exactly at half the price, for half a 
guinea each volume, books so little inferior to 
the quartos, that, by a fraud of trade, those 
folios, being afterwards shortened by cutting 
away the top and bottom, were sold as copies 
printed for the subscribers. 

Lintot printed two hundred and fifty on royal 
paper in folio, for two guineas a volume ; of the 
small folio, having printed seventeen hundred 
and fifty copies of the first volume, he reduced 
the number in the other volumes to a thousand. 

It is unpleasant to relate that the bookseller, 
after all his hopes and all his liberality, was, by 
a very unjust and illegal action, defrauded of 
his profit. An edition of the English " Iliad" 



POPE. 



273 



was printed in Holland, in duodecimo, and im- 
ported clandestinely for the gratification of 
those who were impatient to read what they 
could not yet afford to buy. This fraud could 
only be counteracted by an edition equally 
cheap and more commodious ; and Lintot was 
compelled to contract his folio at once into a 
duodecimo, and lose the advantage of an inter- 
mediate gradation. The notes, which in the 
Dutch copies were placed at the end of each 
book, as they had been in the large volumes, 
were now subjoined to the text in the same 
page, and are therefore more easily consulted. 
Of this edition two thousand five hundred were 
first printed, and five thousand a few weeks af- 
terwards ; but indeed great numbers were ne- 
cessary to produce considerable profit. 

Pope, having now emitted his proposals, and 
engaged not only his own reputation, but in 
some degree that of his friends who patronized 
his subscription, began to be frighted at his own 
undertaking ; and finding himself at first em- 
barrassed with difficulties, which retarded and 
oppressed him, he was for a time timorous and 
uneasy, had his nights disturbed by dreams of 
long journeys through unknown ways, and 
wished, as he said, " that somebody would 
hang him."* 

This misery, however, was not of long con- 
tinuance ; he grew by degrees more acquainted 
with Homer's images and expressions, and 
practice increased his facility of versification. 
In a short time he represents himself as des- 
patching regularly fifty verses a day, which 
would show him by an easy computation the 
termination of his labour. 

His own diffidence was not his only vexation. 
He that asks a subscription soon finds that he 
has enemies. All who do not encourage him 
defame him. He that wants money will ra- 
ther be thought angry than poor ; and he that 
wishes to save his money conceals his avarice by 
his malice. Addison had hinted his suspicion 
that Pope was too much a tory ; and some of 
the tories suspected his principles beeause he 
had contributed to " The Guardian," which 
was carried on by Steele. 

To those who censured his politics were 
added enemies yet more dangerous, who called 
in question his knowledge of Greek, and his 
qualifications for a translator of Homer. To 
these he made no public opposition ; but in one 
of his letters escapes from them as well as he 
can. At an age like his, for he was not more 
than twenty-five, with an irregular education, 
and a course of life of which much seems to 
have passed in conversation, it is not very 
likely that he overflowed with Greek. But 
when he felt himself deficient he sought assist- 



Spcnce. 



ance; and what man of learning would refuse 
to help him ? Minute inquiries into the force 
of words are less necessary in translating Ho- 
mer than other poets, because his positions are 
general, and his representations natural, with 
very little dependence on local or temporary 
customs, on those changeable scenes of ai'tificial 
life, which, by mingling originally with acci- 
dental notions, and crowding the mind with 
images which time effaces, produces ambiguity 
in diction and obscurity in books. To this 
open display of unadulterated nature it must be 
ascribed, that Homer has fewer passages of 
doubtful meaning than any other poet either in 
the learned or in modern languages. I have 
read of a man, who being, by his ignorance of 
Greek, compelled to gratify his curiosity with 
the Latin printed on the opposite page, declared, 
that from the rude simplicity of the lines liter- 
ally rendered, he formed nobler ideas of the 
Homeric majesty, than from the laboured ele- 
gance of polished versions. 

Those literal translations were always at 
hand, and from them he could easily obtain his 
author's sense with sufficient certainty; and 
among the readers of Homer the number is 
very small of those who find much in the Greek 
more than in the Latin, except the music of the 
numbers. 

If more help was wanting, he had the poeti- 
cal translation of Eobanus Hessus, an unwea- 
ried writer of Latin verses ; he had the French 
Homers of La Valterie and Dacier, and the 
English of Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby. 
With Chapman, whose work, though now to- 
tally neglected, seems to have been popular al- 
most to the end of the last century, he had very 
frequent consultations, and perhaps nev*»r tran- 
slated any passage till he had read his version, 
which indeed he has been sometimes suspected 
of using instead of the original. 

Notes were likewise to be provided, for the 
six volumes would have been very little more 
than six pamphlets without them. What the 
mere perusal of the text could suggest, Pope 
wanted no assistance to collect or methodize ; 
but more was necessary ; many pages were to 
be filled, and learning must supply materials 
to wit and judgment. Something might be 
gathered from Dacier ; but no man loves to be 
indebted to his contemporaries, and Dacier was 
accessible to common readers. Eustathius was 
therefore necessarily consulted. To read Eu- 
stathius, of whose work there was then no La- 
tin version, I suspect Pope, if he had been 
willing, not to have been able ; some other was 
therefore to be found, who had leisure as well 
as abilities ; and he was doubtless most readily 
employed who would do much work for little 
money. 

The history of the notes has never been traced. 
Broome, in his preface to his poems, declares 



274 



POPE. 



himself the commentator " in part upon the 
Iliad;" and it appears from Fen ton's letter, 
preserved in the Museum, that Broome was at 
first engaged in consulting Eustathius, hut that 
after a time, whatever was the reason, he de- 
sisted ; another man, of Camhridge, was then 
employed, who soon grew weary of the work ; 
and a third, that was recommended hy Thirlby, 
is now discovered to have been Jortin, a man 
since well known to the learned world, who 
complained that Pope, having accepted and ap- 
proved his performance, never testified any cu- 
riosity to see him, and who professed to have 
forgotten the terms on which he worked. The 
terms which Fenton uses are very mercantile : 
" 1 think at first sight that his performance is 
very commendable, and have sent word for him 
to finish the 17th book, and to send it with his 
demands for his trouble. I have here enclosed 
the specimen ; if the rest come before the re- 
turn, I will keep them till I receive your 
order." 

Broome then offered his service a second time, 
which was probably accepted, as they had after- 
wards a closer correspondence. Parnell contri- 
buted the life of Homer, which Pope found so 
harsh, that he took great pains in correcting it; 
and by his own diligence, with such help as 
kindness or money could procure him, in some- 
what more than five years he completed his 
version of the "Iliad," with the notes. He 
began it in 1712, his twenty-fifth year, and con- 
cluded it in 1718, his thirtieth year. 

When we find him translating fifty lines a 
day, it is natural to suppose that he would have 
brought his work to a more speedy conclusion. 
The " Iliad," containing less than sixteen thou- 
sand verses, might have been despatched in less 
than three hundred and twenty days, by fifty 
verses in a day. The notes, compiled with the 
assistance of his mercenaries, could not be sup- 
posed to require more time than the text. 

According to this calculation, the progress of 
Pope may seem to have been slow; but the dis- 
tance is commonly very great between actual 
performances and speculative possibility. It is 
natural to suppose, that as much as has been 
done to-day may be done to-morrow ; but on 
the morrow, some difficulty emerges, or some 
external impediment obstructs. Indolence, in- 
terruption, business, and pleasure, all take their 
turns of retardation ; and every long work is 
lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and 
ten thousand that cannot, be recounted. Per- 
haps no extensive and multifarious performance 
was ever effected within the term originally 
fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs 
against time has an antagonist not subject to 
casualties. 

The encouragement given to this translation, 
though report seems to have overrated it, was 
such as the world has not often seen. The sub- 



i scribers were five hundred and seventy-five. 

j The copies for Avhich subscriptions were given 

I were six hundred and fifty-four ; and only six 

! hundred and sixty were printed. For these 

copies Pope had nothing to pay ; he therefore 

received, including the two hundred pounds a 

volume, five thousand three hundred and twenty 

pounds four shillings without deduction, as the 

books were supplied by Lintot. 

By the success of his subscription Pope was 
relieved from those pecuniary distresses with 
which, notwithstanding his popularity, he had 
hitherto struggled. Lord Oxford had often la- 
mented his disqualification for public employ- 
ment, but never proposed a pension. While 
the translation of " Homer" was in its progress, 
Mr. Craggs, then secretary of state, offered to 
procure him a pension, which, at least during 
his ministry, might be enjoyed with secrecy. 
This was not accepted by Pope, who told him, 
however, that if he should be pressed with 
want of money, he would send to him for 
occasional supplies. Craggs was not long in 
power, and was never solicited for money 
by Pope, who disdained to beg what he did not 
want. 

With the product of this subscription, which 
he had too much discretion to squander, he se- 
cured his future life from want, by considerable 
annuities. The estate of the Duke of Buck- 
ingham was found to have been charged with 
five hundred pounds a year, payable to Pope, 
which doubtless his translation enabled him to 
purchase. 

It cannot be unwelcome to literary curiosity 
that I deduce thus minutely the history of the 
English " Iliad." It is certainly the noblest 
version of poetry which the world has ever 
seen; and its publication must therefoi'ebe con- 
sidered as one of the great events in the annals 
of learning. 

To those who have skill to estimate the excel- 
lence and difficulty of this great work, it must 
be very desirable to know how it was performed, 
and by what gradations it advanced to correct- 
ness. Of such an intellectual process the 
knowledge has very rarely been attainable ; but 
happily there remains the original copy of the 
" Iliad," which being obtained by Bolingbroke 
as a curiosity, descended from him to Mallet, 
and is now, by the solicitation of the late Dr. 
Maty, reposited in the Museum. 

Between this manuscript, which is written 
upon accidental fragments of paper, and the 
printed edition, there must have been an inter- 
mediate copy, that was perhaps destroyed as it 
returned from the press. 

From the first copy I have procured a few 
transcripts, and shall exhibit first the printed 
lines, distinguished by inverted commas ; then 
those of the manuscripts, with all their varia- 
tions. Those words which are given in italics 



P O 1 J K. 



^75 



are cancelled in the copy, and the words 
placed under them adopted in their stead. 

The beginning' of the first book stands thus : 

" The wrath of Peleus' son, the direful spring 
Of all the Grecian woes, O Goddess, sing, 
That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign 
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain." 

The stern Pelides' rage, O Goddess, sing, 
wrath 
Of all the woes of Greece the fatal spring, 

Grecian 
That strew'd with warriors dead the Phrygian 

plain, heroes 

And peopled the dark hell with heroes slain ; 
fill'd the shady hell with chiefs untimely 

" Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore, 
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore, 
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove : 
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of 
Jove." 

Whose limbs, unburied on the hostile shore, 
Devouring dogs and greedy vultures tore, 
Since first Atrides and Achilles strove : 
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will 
of Jove. 

" Declare, O Muse, in what ill-fated hour 

Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended Power? 

Latona's son a dire contagion spread, 

And heap'd the camp with mountains of the dead ; 

The King of men his reverend priest defy'd, 

And for the King's offence the people died." 

Declare, O Goddess, what offended Power 
Inflamed their rage, in that ill-ome7i'd hour ; 

anger fatal, hapless 

Phoebus himself the dire debate procured, 

fierce 
To avenge the wrongs his injured priest endured; 
For this the God a dire infection spread, 
And heap'd the camp with millions of the dead ; 
The King of men the Sacred Sire defy'd, 
And for the King's offence the people died. 

" For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain 
His captive daughter from the Victor's chain ; 
Suppliant the venerable Father stands, 
Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands ; 
By these he begs, and, lowly bending down, 
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown." 

For Chryses sought by presents to regain 
costly gifts to gain 
His captive daughter from the Victor's chain ! 
Suppliant the venerable Father stands, 
Apollo's awful ensigns graced his hands. 
By these he begs, and lowly bending down 
The golden sceptre and the laurel crown, 
Presents the sceptre 
For these as ensigns of his God he hare 
The God that sends his golde?i shafts afar 
Then, low on earth, the venerable man, 
Suppliant, before the brother kings began. 

" He sued to all, but chief implored for grace 
The brother kings of Atreus' royal race : 



Ye kings and warriors, may your vows be crown'd, 
And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground ; 
May Jove restore you, when your toils are o'er, 
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore." 

To all he sued, but chief implored for grace 

The brother Kings of Atreus' royal race : 

Ye sons of Atreus, may your vows be crown'd, 

kings and warriors 
Your labours, by the Gods be all your labours 

crown'd, 
So may the Gods your arms with conquest bless, 
And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground ; 
Till laid 

And crown your labours with deserved success ; 
May Jove restore you, when your toils are o'er, 
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore. 

" But, oh ! relieve a wretched parent's pain, 
And give Chryseis to these arms again ; 
If mercy faih yet let my present move, 
And dread avenging Phoebus, son of Jove." 

But, oh ! relieve a hapless parent's pain 
And give my daughter to these arms again ; 
Receive my gifts; if mercy fails, yet let my pre- 
sent move 
And fear the God that deals his darts around. 
avenging Phoebus, son of Jove. 

" The Greeks, in shouts, their joint assent declare,. 
The priest to reverence and release the fair. 
Not so Atrides ; he, with kingly pride, 
Repulsed the sacred Sire, and thus reply'd." 

He said, the Greeks their joint assent declare, 
The father said, the generous Greeks relent, 
To accept the ransom, and release the fair ; 
Revere the priest, and speak their joint assent ; 
Not so the tyrant, he, with kingly pride, 

Atrides 
Repulsed the sacred Sire, and thus replied. 

[Not so the tyrant. Dryden.] 

Of these lines, and of the whole first book, 
I am told that there was yet a former copy, 
more varied, and more deformed with interli- 
neations. 

The beginning of the second book varies very 
little from the printed page, and is therefore set 
down without a parallel ; the few differences do 
not require to be elaborately displayed. 

" Now pleasing sleep had seal'd each mortal eye ; 
Stretch'd in their tents the Grecian leaders lie ; 
The immortals slumber'd on their thrones above, 
All but the ever-watchful eye of Jove. 
To honour Thetis' son he bends his care, 
And plunge the Greeks in all the woes of war. 
Then bids an empty phantom rise to sight, 
And thus commands the vision of the night : 

directs 
Fly hence delusive dream, and, bight as .air, 
To Agamemnon's royal tent repair ; 
Bid him in arms draw forth the embattled train, 
March all his legions to the dusty plain. 
Now tell the King 'tis given him to destroy 
Declare even now 

The lofty walls of wide-extended Troy ; 
towers 



276 



POPE. 



For now no more the Gods with fate contend ; 
At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end. 
Destruction hovers o'er yon devoted wall 

hangs 
And nodding Ilium waits the impending fall." 

Invocation, to the catalogue of ships. 

" Say, Tirgins, seated round the throne divine, 

All-knowing Goddesses ! immortal Nine! 

Since Earth's wide regions, Heaven's unmeasured 

height, 
And Hell's abyss, hide nothing from your sight, 
(We, wretched mortals ! lost in doubts below, 
But guess by rumour, and but boast we know) 
Oh ! say what heroes, fired by thirst of fame, 
Or urged by wrongs, to Troy's destruction came! 
To count them all demands a thousand tongues, 
A throat of brass and adamantine lungs." 

Now, Virgin Goddesses, immortal Nine ! 
That round Olympus' heavenly summit shine, 
Who see through Heaven and Earth, and Hell 

p-Tofound, 
And all things know, and all things can resound ! 
Relate what armies sought the Trojan land, 
What nations follow'd, and what chiefs com- 
mand ; 
(For doubtful fame distracts mankind below, 
And nothing can we tell and nothing know) 
Without your aid, to count the unnumber'd train, 
A thousand mouths, a thousand tongues, were 
vain. 

Book v. v. 1. 

" But Pallas now Tydides' soul inspires, 
Fills with her force, and warms with all her fires ; 
Above the Greeks his deathless fame to raise, 
And crown her hero with distinguish'd praise. 
High on his helm celestial lightnings play, 
His beamy shield emits a living ray ; 
The unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies, 
Like the red star that fires the autumnal skies." 

But Pallas now Tydides' soul inspires, 
Fills with her rage, and warms with all her fires ; 

force 
O'er all the Greeks decrees his fame to raise, 
Above the Greeks her warrior's fame to raise, 

his deathless 
And crown her hero with immortal praise : 

distinguish'd 
Bright from his beamy crest the lightnings play, 

High on helm 

From his broad buckler fiash'd the living ray ; 
High on his helm celestial lightnings play, 
His beamy shield emits a living ray ; 
The Goddess with her breath the flames supplies, 
Bright as the star whose fires in Autumn rise ; 
Her breath divine thick streaming flames sup- 
plies, 
Bright as the star that fires the autumnal skies : 
The unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies, 
Like the red star that fires the autumnal skies : 

" When first he rears his radiant orb to sight, 
And bath'd in ocean, shoots a keener light. 
Such glories Pallas on the chief bestow'd, 
Such from his arms the fierce effulgence flow'd ; 



Onward she drives him, furious to engage, 
Where the fight burns, and where the thickest 
rage." 

When fresh he rears his radiant orb to sight, 
And gilds old Ocean with a blaze of light. 
Bright as the star that fires the autumnal skies, 
Fresh from the deep, and gilds the seas and 

skies ; 
Such glories Pallas on her chief bestow'd, 
Such sparkling rays from his bright armour 

flow'd : 
Such from his arms the fierce effulgence flowV ; 
Onward she drives him headlong to engage, 

furious 
Where the tear bleeds, and where the ^fiercest 

rage. fight burns thickest 

" The sons of Dares first the combat sought, 
A wealthy priest, but rich without a fault ; 
In Vulcan's fane the father's days were led, 
The sons to toils of glorious battle bred ;" 

There lived a Trojan — Dares was his name, 
The priest of Vulcan, rich, yet void of blame ; 
The sons of Dares first the combat sought, 
A wealthy priest, but rich without a fault. 



Conclusion of Book viii. v. 637. 

" As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, 
O'er Heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, 
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, 
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ; 
Around her throne the vivid planets roll, 
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole ; 
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, 
And tip with silver every mountain's head ; 
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, 
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies ; 
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, 
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. 
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, 
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays; 
The long reflections of the distant fires 
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires. 
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild, 
And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field. 
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend, 
Whose umber'd arms by fits thick flashes send ; 
Loud neigh the coursers o'er the heaps of corn, 
And ardent warriors wait the rising morn." 

As when in stillness of the silent night, 
As when the moon in all her lustre bright ; 
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, 
O'er Heaven's clear azure sheds her silver light ; 

pure spreads sacred 

As still in air the trembling lustre stood, 
And o'er its golden border shoots a flood ; 
When no loose gale disturbs the deep serene, 

not a breath 
And no dim cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ; 

not a 
Around her silver throne the planets glow 
And stars unnumber'd trembling beams bestow : 
Around her throne the vivid planets roll, 
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole; 



POPE. 



277 



Clear gleatns of light o'er the dark trees are seen 
o'er the dark trees a yellow sheds. 
O'er the dark trees a yellower green they shed, 
gleam 
verdure 
And tip with silver all the mountain heads. 

forest 
And tip with silver every mountain's head. 
The valleys open, and the forests rise, 
The vales appear, the rocks in prospect rise, 
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect riss. 
All nature stands reveal'd before our eyes ; 
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies. 
The conscious shepherd, joyful at the sight, 
Eyes the blue vault, and numbers every light. 
The conscious sivains, rejoicing at the sight, 
shepherds, gazing with delight 
Eye the blue vault, and bless the vivid light, 
glorious 
useful 
So many flames before the navy blaze, 

proud Ilion 
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays ; 
Wide o'er the fields to Troy extend the gleams, 
And tip the distant spires with fainter beams ; 
The long reflections of the distant fires 
Gild the high walls, and tremble on the spires ; 
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires ; 
A thousand fires, at distant stations, bright, 
Gild the dark prospect, and dispel the night. 

Of these specimens every man who has culti- 
vated poetry, or who delights to trace the mind 
from the rudeness of its first conceptions to the 
elegance of its last, will naturally desire a 
greater number; but most other readers are 
already tired, and I am not writing only to 
poets and philosophers. 

The " Iliad" was published volume by vo- 
lume, as the translation proceeded : the four 
first books appeared in 1715. The expectation 
of this work was undoubtedly high, and every 
man who had connected his name with criti- 
cism or poetry was desirous of such intelligence 
as might enable him to talk upon the popular 
topic. Halifax, who, by having been first a 
poet and then a patron of poetry, had acquired 
the right of being a judge, was willing to hear 
some books while they were yet unpublished. 
Of this rehearsal Pope afterwards gave the fol- 
lowing account : * 

" The famous Lord Halifax was rather a 
pretender to taste than really possessed of it. 
When I had finished the two or three first 
books of my translation of the « Iliad,' that 
lord desired to have the pleasure of hearing 
them read at his house — x4.ddison, Congreve, 
and Garth, were there at the reading. In four 
or five places, Lord Halifax stopped me very 
civilly, and with a speech each time of much 
the same kind, ' I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope : 
but there is something in that passage that does 
not quite please me. Be so good as to mark the 



Spence. 



place, and consider it a little at your leisure. 
I am sure you can give it a little turn.' I re- 
turned from Lord Halifax's with Dr. Garth, 
in his chariot ; and, as we were going along, 
was saying to the doctor, that my lord had laid 
me under a great deal of difficulty by such loose 
and general observations ; that I had been think- 
ing over the passages almost ever since, and 
could not guess at what it was that offended his 
lordship in either of them. Garth laughed 
heartily at my embarrassment ; said, I had not 
been long enough acquainted with Lord Halifax 
to know his way yet ; that I need not puzzle 
myself about looking those places over and over 
when I got home. ' All you need do (says 
he) is to leave them just as they are ; call on 
Lord Halifax two or three months hence, 
thank him for his kind observations on those 
passages, and then read them to him as altered. 
I have known him much longer than you have, 
and will be answerable for the event. ' I fol- 
lowed his advice ; waited on Lord Halifax 
some time after ; said, I hoped he would find 
his objections to those passages removed; read 
them to him exactly as they were at first; and 
his lordship was extremely pleased with them, 
and cried out, ' Ay, now they are perfectly 
right; nothing can be better.' " 

It is seldom that the great or the wise suspect 
that they are despised or cheated. Halifax, 
thinking this a lucky opportunity of securing 
immortality, made some advances of favour 
and some overtures of advantage to Pope, which 
he seems to have received with sullen coldness. 
All our knowledge of this transaction is de- 
rived from a single letter (Dec. 1, 1714), in 
which Pope says, "I am obliged to you, both 
for the favours you have done me, and those 
you intend me. I distrust neither your will 
nor your memory, when it is to do good ; and 
if I ever become troublesome or solicitous, it 
must not be out of expectation, but out of grati- 
tude. Your lordship may cause me to live 
agreeably in the town, or contentedly in the 
country, which is really all the difference I set 
between an easy fortune and a small one. It is 
indeed a high strain of generosity in you to 
think of making me easy all my life, only be- 
cause I have been so happy as to divert you 
some few hours; but, if I may have leave to 
add, it is because you think me no enemy to my 
native country, there will appear a better rea- 
son ; for I must of consequence be very much 
(as I sincerely am) yours, &c." 

These voluntary offers, and this faint accept- 
ance, ended without effect. The patron was 
not accustomed to such frigid gratitude; and 
the poet fed his own pride with the dignity of 
independence. They probably were suspicious 
of each other. Pope would not dedicate till he 
saw at what rate his praise was valued ; he 
would be < troublesome out of gratitude, not 
Nn 



278 



POPE. 



expectation. " Halifax thought himself entitled 
to confidence; and would give nothing unless 
he knew what he should receive. Their com- 
merce had its beginning in hope of praise on 
one side, and of money on the other, and ended 
because Pope was less eager of money than Ha- 
lifax of praise. It is not likely that Halifax 
had any personal benevolence to Pope; it is 
evident that Pope looked on Halifax with scorn 
and hatred. 

The reputation of this great work failed in 
gaining him a patron, but it deprived him of a 
friend. Addison and he were now at the head 
of poetry and criticism ; and both in such a 
state of elevation, that, like the two rivals in 
the Roman state, one could no longer bear an 
equal, nor the other a superior. Of the gradual 
abatement of kindness between friends, the be- 
ginning is often scarcely discernible to them- 
selves, and the process is continued by petty 
provocations and incivilities, sometimes peev- 
ishly returned and sometimes contemptuously 
neglected, which would escape all attention but 
that of pride, and drop from any memory but 
that of resentment. That the quarrel of these 
two wits should be minutely deduced, is not to 
be expected from a writer, to whom, as Homer 
says, " nothing but rumour has reached, and has 
no personal knowledge." 

Pope doubtless approached Addison when the 
reputation of their wit first brought them to- 
gether, with the respect due to a man whose 
abilities were acknowledged, and who, having 
attained that eminence to which he was himself 
aspiring, had in his hands the distribution of li- 
terary fame. He paid court with sufficient 
diligence by his prologue to " Cato," by his 
abuse of Dennis, and with praise yet more di- 
rect, by his poem on the " Dialogues on Me- 
dals," of which the immediate publication was 
then intended. In all this there was no hy- 
pocrisy ; for he confessed that he found in Ad- 
dison something more pleasing than in any 
other man 

It may be supposed, that as Pope saw himself 
favoured by the world, and more frequently 
compared his own powers with those of others, 
his confidence increased and his submission les- 
sened ; and that Addison felt no delight from 
the advances of a young wit, who might soon 
contend with him for the highest place. Every 
great man, of whatever kind be his greatness, 
has among his friends those who officiously or 
insiduously quicken his attention to offences, 
heighten his disgust, and stimulate his resent- 
ment. Of such adherents Addison doubtless 
had many; and Pope was now too high to be 
without them. 

From the emission and reception of the pro- 
posals for the " fliad," the kindness of Addison 
seems to have abated. Jervas the painter once 
pleased himself (Aug. 20, 1714) with imagin- 



ing that he had re-established their friendship ; 
and wrote to Pope that Addison once suspected 
him of too close a confederacy with Swift, but 
was now satisfied with his conduct. To this 
Pope answered, a week after, that his engage- 
ments to Swift were such as his services in re- 
gard to the subscription demanded, and that the 
tories never put him under the necessity of ask- 
ing leave to be grateful. " But," says he, " as 
Mr. Addison must be the judge in what re- 
gards himself, and seems to have no very just 
one in regard to me, so I must own to you I 
expect nothing but civility from him." In the 
same letter he mentions Philips, as having been 
busy to kindle animosity between them ; but 
in a letter to Addison he expresses some con- 
sciousness of behaviour inattentively deficient 
in respect. 

Of Swift's industry in promoting the sub- 
scription, there remains the testimony of Ken- 
net, no friend to either him or Pope. 

" Nov. 2, 1713, Dr. Swift came into the cof- 
fee-house, and had a bow from every body but 
me, who, I confess, could not but despise him. 
When I came to the anti-chamber to wait, be- 
fore prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man 
of talk and business, and acted as master of 
requests. — Then he instructed a young noble- 
man that the best poet in England was Mr. 
Pope (a papist), who had begun a translation of 
Homer into English verse, for which he must 
have them all subscribe ; for, says he, the author 
shall not begin to print till I have a thousand 
guineas for him." 

About this time it is likely that Steele, who 
was, with all his political fury, good natured 
and officious, procured an interview between 
these angry rivals, which ended in aggravated 
malevolence. On this occasion, if the reports 
be true, Pope made his complaint with frank- 
ness and spirit, as a man undeservedly neg- 
lected or opposed ; and Addison affected a con- 
temptuous unconcern, and, in a calm even voice, 
reproached Pope with his vanity, and telling him 
of the improvements which his early works had 
received from his own remarks and those of 
Steele, said, that he, being now engaged in 
public business, had no longer any care for his 
poetical reputation, nor had any other desire, 
with regard to Pope, than that he should not, 
by too much arrogance, alienate the public. 

To this Pope is said to have replied with 
great keenness and severity, upbraiding Addi- 
son with perpetual dependence, and with the 
abuse of those qualifications which he had ob- 
tained at the public cost, and charging him 
with mean endeavours to obstruct the progress 
of rising merit. The contest rose so high that 
they parted at last without any interchange of 
civility. 

The first volume of Homer was (1715) in 
time published ; and a rival version of the first 



POPE. 



279 



" Iliad," for rivals the time of their appear- 
ance inevitably made them, was immediately 
printed, with the name of Tickell. It was 
soon perceived that among the followers of Ad- 
dison, Tickell had the preference, and the cri- 
tics and poets divided into factions. " I," says 
Pope, " have the town, that is, the mob, on my 
side ; but it is not uncommon for the smaller 
party to supply by industry what it wants in 
numbers. — I appeal to the people as my right- 
ful judges, and, while they are not inclined to 
condemn me, shall not fear the high-flyers at 
Button's." This opposition he immediately 
imputed to Addison, and complained of it in 
terms sufficiently resentful to Craggs, their com- 
mon friend. 

When Addison's opinion was asked, he de- 
clared the versions to be both good, but Tickell's 
the best that had ever been written ; and some- 
times said that they were both good, but that 
Tickell had more of Homer. 

Pope was now sufficiently irritated ; his re- 
putation and his interest were at hazard. He 
once intended to print together the four ver- 
sions of Dryden, Maynwaring, Pope, and Tick- 
ell, that they might be readily compared, and 
fairly estimated. This design seems to have 
been defeated by the refusal of Tonson, who 
was the proprietor of the other three versions. 

Pope intended, at another time, a rigorous 
criticism of Tickell's ti'anslation, and had 
marked a copy, which I have seen, in all places 
that appeared defective. But, while he was 
thus meditating defence or revenge, his adver- 
sary sunk before him without a blow; the 
voice of the public was not long divided, and 
the preference was universally given to Pope's 
performance. 

He was convinced, by adding one circum- 
stance to another, that the other translation 
was the work of Addison himself; but if he 
knew it in Addison's life-time, it does not ap- 
pear that he told it. He left his illustrious an- 
tagonist to be punished by what has been con- 
sidered as the most painful of all reflections, 
the remembrance of a crime perpetrated in 
vain. 

The other circumstances of their quarrel were 
thus related by Pope,* 

" Philips seemed to have been encouraged to 
abuse me in coffee-houses and conversations; 
and Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherly, in 
which he had abused both me and my relations 
very grossly. Lord Warwick himself told me 
one day, that it was in vain for me to endeavour 
to be well with Mr. Addison ; that his jealous 
temper would never admit of a settled friend- 
ship between us; and, to convince me of what 
he had said, assured me that Addison had en- 



couraged Gildon to publish those scandals, and 
had given him ten guineas after they were pub- 
lished. The next day while I was heated with 
what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Ad- 
dison, to let Tlim know that I was not unac- 
quainted with this behaviour of his ; that, if I 
was to speak severely of him in return for it, it 
should be not in such a dirty way; that I 
should rather tell him, himself, fairly of his 
faults, and allow his good qualities ; and that it 
should be something in the following manner ; 
I then adjoined the first sketch of what has 
since been called my satire on Addison. Mr. 
Addison used me very civilly ever after."* 

The verses on Addison, when they were sent 
to Atterbury, were considered by him as the 
most excellent of Pope's performances; and 
the writer was advised, since he knew where 
his strength lay, not to suffer it to remain 
unemployed. 

This year (1715) being, by the subscription, 
enabled to live more by choice, having persuaded 
his father to sell their estate at Binfield, he pur- 
chased, I think only for his life, that house at 
Twickenham, to which his residence afterwards 
procured so much celebration, and removed 
thither with his father and mother. 

Here he planted the vines and the quincunx 
which his verses mention ; and being under the 
necessity of making a subterraneous passage to 
a garden on the other side of the road, he adorn- 
ed it with fossile bodies, and dignified it with 
the title of a grotto, a place of silence and re- 
treat, from which he endeavoured to persuade 
his friends and himself that cares and passions 
could be excluded. 

A grotto is not often the wish or pleasure of 
an Englishman, who has more frequent need to 
solicit than exclude the sun ; but Pope's exca- 
vation was requisite as an entrance to his gar- 
den, and as some men try to be proud of their 
defects, he extracted an ornament from an in- 
convenience, and vanity produced a grotto 
where necessity enforced a passage. It may be 
frequently remarked of the studious and specu- 
lative, that they are proud of trifles, and that 
their amusements seem frivolous and childish ; 
whether it be that men conscious of great re- 
putation think themselves above the reach of 
censure, and safe in the admission of negligent 
indulgences, or that mankind expect from ele- 
vated genius a uniformity of greatness, and 
watch its degradation with malicious wonder ; 
like him who, having followed with his eye an 
eagle into the clouds, should lament that she 
ever descended to a perch. 

While the volumes of his Homer were an- 
nually published, he collected his former works 



Sjpence. 



* See however the Life- of Addison in the 
graphia Britaunica/ /ast edition. — R. 



Bio- 



280 



POPE. 



(1717) into one quarto volume, to which he 
prefixed a preface, written with great sprightli- 
ness and elegance, which was afterwards re- 
printed, with some passages subjoined that he 
at first omitted; other marginal additions of 
the same kind he made in the later editions of 
his poems. Waller remarks, that poets lose 
half their praise, because the reader knows not 
what they have blotted. Pope's voracity of 
fame taught him the art of obtaining the accu- 
mulated honour, both of what he had published 
and of what he had suppressed. 

In this year his father died suddenly, in his 
seventy-fifth year, having passed twenty-nine 
years in privacy. He is not known but by the 
character which his son has given him. If the 
money with which he retired was all gotten 
by himself, he had traded very successfully 
in times when sudden riches were rarely at- 
tainable. 

The publication of the " Iliad" was at last 
completed in 1720. The splendour and success 
of this work raised Pope many enemies, that 
endeavoured to depreciate his abilities. Burnet, 
who was afterwards a judge of no mean repu- 
tation, censured him in a piece called " Ho- 
merides," before it was published. Ducket 
likewise endeavoured to make him ridiculous. 
Dennis was the perpetual persecutor of all his 
studies. But, whoever his critics were, their 
writings are lost ; and the names which are 
preserved are preserved in the " Dunciad." 

In this disastrous year (1720) of national in- 
fatuation, when more riches than Peru can 
boast were- expected from the South Sea, when 
the contagion of avarice tainted every mind, 
and even poets panted after wealth, Pope was 
seized with the universal passion, and ventured 
some of his money. The stock rose in its 
price; and for awhile he thought himself the 
lord of thousands. But this dream of happi- 
ness did not last long; and he seems to have 
waked soon enough to get clear with the loss of 
what he once thought himself to have won, and 
perhaps not wholly of that. 

Next year he published some select poems of 
his friend Dr. Parnell, with a very elegant de- 
dication to the Earl of Oxford; who, after all 
his struggles and dangers, then lived in retire- 
ment, still under the frown of a victorious fac- 
tion, who could take no pleasure in hearing his 
praise. 

He gave the same year (1721) an edition of 
Shakspeare. His name was now of so much 
authority, that Tonson thought himself entitled, 
by annexing it, to demand a subscription of six 
guineas for Shakspeare's plays in six quarto vo- 
lumes : nor did his expectation much deceive 
him; for, of seven hundred and fifty which he 
printed, he dispersed a great number at the 
price proposed. The reputation of that edition 
indeed sunk afterwards so low, that one hun- 



dred and forty copies were sold at sixteen shil- 
ings each. 

On this undertaking, to which Pope was in- 
duced by a reward of two hundred and seven- 
teen pounds twelve shillings, he seems never to 
have reflected afterwards without vexation ; for 
Theobald, a man of heavy diligence, with very 
slender powers, first, in a book called " Shak- 
speare Restored," and then in a formal edition, 
detected his deficiences with all the insolence of 
victory ; and, as he was now high enough to be 
feared and hated, Theobald had from others al? 
the help that could be supplied by the desire of 
humbling a haughty character. 

From this time Pope became an enemy to 
editors, collators, commentators, and verbal cri- 
tics ; and hoped to persuade the world, that he 
miscarried in this undertaking only by having 
a mind too great for such minute employment. 

Pope in his edition undoubtedly did many 
things wrong, and left many things undone; 
but let him not be defrauded of his due praise. 
He was the first that knew, at least the first 
that told, by what helps the text might be im- 
proved. If he inspected the early editions neg- 
ligently, he taught others to be more accurate. 
In his preface he expanded with great skill and 
elegance the character which had been given 
of Shakspeare by Dryden ; and he drew the 
public attention upon his works, which, though 
often mentioned, had been little read. 

Soon after the appearance of the " Iliad," 
resolving not to let the general kindness cool, 
he published proposals for a translation of the 
" Odyssey," in five volumes, for five guineas. 
He was willing, however, now to have asso- 
ciates in his labour, being either weary with 
toiling upon another's thoughts, or having 
heard, as Ruffhead relates, that Fenton and 
Broome had already begun the work, and 
liking better to have them confederates than 
rivals. 

In the patent, instead of saying that he had 
" translated" the " Odyssey," as he had said of 
the " Ilia'd," he says, that he had "undertaken" 
a translation ; and in the proposals the subscrip- 
tion is said to be not solely for his own use, but 
for that of " two of his friends who have as- 
sisted him in this work." 

In 1723, while he was engaged in this new 
version, he appeared before the Lords at the 
memorable trial of Bishop Atterbury, with 
whom he had lived in great-familiarity and fre- 
quent correspondence. Atterbury had honestly 
recommended to him the study of the popish 
controversy, in hope of his conversion ; to 
which Pope answered in a manner that cannot 
muoh recommend his principles or his judg- 
ment. In questions and projects of learning 
they agreed better. He was called at the trial 
to give an account of Atterbury's domestic life 
and private employment, that it might appear 



POPE. 



281 



how little time lie had left for plots. Pope had 
but few words to utter, and in those few he 
made several blunders. 

His letters to Atterbury express the utmost 
esteem, tenderness, and gratitude; "perhaps," 
says he, " it is not only in this world that 1 
may have cause to remember the Bishop of Ro- 
chester." At their last interview in the Tower, 
Atterbury presented him with a Bible.* 

Of the " Odyssey" Pope translated only 
twelve books ; the rest were the work of Broome 
and Fenton ; the notes were written wholly by 
Broome, who was not over-liberally rewarded. 
The public was carefully kept ignorant of the 
several shares ; and an account was subjoined 
at the conclusion which is now known not to 
be true. 

The first copy of Pope's books, with those of 
Fenton, are to be seen in the Museum. The 
parts of Pope are less interlined than the 
" Iliad," and the latter books of the " Iliad" 
less than the former. He grew dexterous by 
practice, and every sheet enabled him to write 
the next with more facility. The books of 
Fenton have very few alterations by the hand 
of Pope. Those of Broome have not been 
found ; but Pope complained, as it is reported, 
that he had much trouble in correcting them. 

His contract with Lintot was the same as for 
the " Iliad," except that only one hundred 
pounds were to be paid him for each volume. 
The number of subscribers were five hundred 
and seventy-four, and of copies eight hundred 
and nineteen ; so that his profit, when he had 
paid his assistants, was still very considerable. 
The work was finished in 1725; and from 
that time he resolved to make no more trans- 
lations. 

The sale did not answer Lintot's expectation ; 
and he then pretended to discover something of 
fraud in Pope, and commenced or threatened a 
suit in Chancery. 

On the English " Odyssey" a criticism was 
published by Spence, at that time prelector of 
poetry at Oxford ; a man whose learning was 
not very great, and whose mind was not very 
powerful. His criticism, however, was com- 
monly just. What he thought, he thought 
rightly ; and his remarks were recommended 
by his coolness and candour. In him Pope had 
the first experience of a critic without malevo- 
lence, who thought it as much his duty to dis- 
play beauties as expose faults; who censured 
with respect and praised with alacrity. 

With this criticism Pope was so little offend- 
ed, that he sought the acquaintance of the wri- 



* The late Mr. Graves of Claverton informs us 
that this Bible was afterwards used in the chapel cf 
Prior-park. Dr. Warburton probably presented it 
to Mr. Allen.— C. 



ter, who lived with him from that time in great 
familiarity, attended him in his last hours, and 
compiled memorials of his convei'sation. The 
regard of Pope recommended him to the great 
and powerful; and he obtained very valuable 
preferments in the church. 

Not long after, Pope was returning home 
from a visit in a friend's coach, which, in pass- 
ing a bridge, was overturned into the water; 
the windows were closed, and, being unable to 
force them open, he was in danger of immediate 
death, when the postilion snatched him out bj 
breaking the glass, of which the fragments cut 
two of his fingers in such a manner that he lost 
their use. 

Voltaire, who was then in England, sent him 
a letter of consolation. He had been enter- 
tained by Pope at his table, where he talked 
with so much grossness, that Mrs. Pope was 
driven from the room. Pope discovered by a 
trick, that he was a spy for the court, and 
never considered him as a man worthy of con- 
fidence. 

He soon afterwards (1727) joined with Swift, 
who was then in England, to publish three vo- 
lumes of Miscellanies, in which among other 
things he inserted the " Memoirs of a Parish 
Clerk," in ridicule of Burnet's importance in 
his own History, and a " Debate upon Black 
and White Horses," written in all the formali- 
ties of a legal process, by the assistance, as is 
said, of Mr. Fortescue, afterwards Master of 
the Rolls. Before these Miscellanies is a pre- 
face signed by Swift and Pope, but apparently 
written by Pope; in which he makes a ridi- 
culous and romantic complaint of the robberies 
committed upon authors by the clandestine 
seizure and sale of their papers. He tells, in 
tragic strains, how " the cabinets of the sick, 
and the closets of the dead, have been broken 
open and ransacked ;" as if those violences were 
often committed for papers of uncertain and 
accidental value which are rarely provoked by 
real treasures ; as if epigrams and essays were 
in danger where gold and diamonds are safe. 
A cat hunted for his musk is, according to 
Pope's account, but the emblem of a wit winded 
by booksellers. 

His complaint, however, received some attes- 
tation; for the same year the Letters written 
by him to Mr. Cromwell in his youth were sold 
by Mrs. Thomas, to Curll, who printed them. 

In these Miscellanies was first published the 
" Art of Sinking in Poetry," which, by such a 
train of consequences as usually passes in li- 
terary quarrels, gave in a short time, according 
to Pope's account, occasion to the " Duneiad." 

In the following year (1728) he began to put 
A tterbury's advice in practice: and showed his 
satirical powers by publishing the " Duneiad," 
one of his greatest and most elaborate perform- 
ances, in which he endeavoured to sink into 



282 



POPE. 



contempt all the writers by whom he had been 
attacked, and some others whom he thought 
unable to defend themselves. 

At the head of the Dunces he placed poor 
Theobald, whom he accused of ingratitude : but 
whose real crime was supposed to be that of 
having revised " Shakspeare" more happily 
than himself. This satire had the effect which 
he intended, by blasting the characters which 
it touched. Ralph, who, unnecessarily inter- 
posing in the quarrel, got a place in a subse- 
quent edition, complained that for a time he 
was in danger of starving, as the booksellers 
had no longer any confidence in his capacity. 

The prevalence of this poem was gradual and 
slow ; the plan, if not wholly new, was little 
understood by common readers. Many of the 
allusious required illustration ; the names were 
often expressed only by the initial and final let- 
ters, and, if they had been printed at length, 
were such as few had known or recollected. 
The subject itself had nothing generally inter- 
esting, for whom did it concern to know that 
one or another scribbler was a dunce? If, 
therefore, it had been possible for those who 
were attacked to conceal their pain and their 
resentment, the " Dunciad" might have made 
its way very slowly in the world. 

This, however was not to be expected : every 
man is of importance to himself, and therefore, 
in his own opinion, to others ; and, supposing 
the world already acquainted with all his plea- 
sures and his pains, is perhaps the first to pub- 
lish injuries or misfortunes, which had never 
been known unless related by himself, and at 
which those that hear them will only laugh ; 
for no man sympathizes with the sorrows of 
vanity. 

The history of the " Dunciad" is very mi- 
nutely related by Pope himself in a dedication 
which he wrote to Lord Middlesex, in the name 
of Savage. 

" 1 will relate the war of the ' Dunces' (for 
so it has been commonly called) which begaza ii 
the year 1727, and ended in 1730. 

" When Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope thought it 
proper, for reasons specified in the preface to 
their Miscellanies, to publish such little pieces 
of theirs as had casually got abroad, there was 
added to them the ' Treatise of the Bathos,' or 
the ' Art of Sinking in Poetry.' It happened 
that, in one chapter of this piece, the several 
species of bad poets were ranged in classes, to 
which were prefixed almost all the letters of 
the alphabet (the greatest part of them at ran- 
dom) ; but such was the number of poets emi- 
nent in that art, that some one or other took 
every letter to himself; all fell into so violent 
a fury that, for half a year or more, the com- 
mon newspapers (in most of which they had 
some property, as being hired writers) were 
tilled with the most abusive falsehoods and 



scurrilities tl:ey could possibly devise; a liberty 
no ways to be wondered at in those people, and 
in those papers, that, for many years during the 
uncontrolled license of the press, had aspersed 
almost all the great characters of the age ; and 
this with impunity, their own persons and 
names being utterly secret and obscure. 

" This gave Mr. Pope the thought, that he 
had now some opportunity of doing good, by de- 
tecting and dragging into light these common 
enemies of mankind ; since, to invalidate this 
universal slander, it sufficed to show what con- 
temptible men were the authors of it. He was 
not without hopes, that by manifesting the dul- 
ness of those who had only malice to recom- 
mend them, either the booksellers would not 
find their account in employing them, or the 
men themselves, when discovered, want courage 
to proceed in so unlawful an occupation. This 
it was that gave birth to the ' Dunciad ;' and he 
thought it a happiness, that, by the late flood 
of slander on himself, he had acquired such a 
peculiar right over their names as was necessary 
to this design. 

" On the 12th of March, 1729, at St. James's, 
that poem was presented to the King and Queen 
(who had before been pleased to read it) by the 
right honourable Sir Robert Walpole : and, 
some days after, the whole impression was taken 
and dispersed by several noblemen and persons 
of the first distinction. 

" It is certainly a true observation, that no 
people are so impatient of censure as those who 
are the greatest slanderers, which was wonder- 
fully exemplified on the occasion. On the day 
the book was first vended, a crowd of authors 
besieged the shop ; entreaties, advices, threats of 
law and battery, nay, cries of treason, were 
all employed to hinder the coming out of the 
' Dunciad ;' on the other side the booksellers 
and hawkers made as great efforts to procure 
it. What could a few poor authors do against 
so great a majority as the public? There 
was no stopping a current with a finger ; so out 
it came. 

" Many ludicrous circumstances attended it. 
The ' Dunces' (for by this name they were 
called) held weekly clubs, to consult of hostili- 
ties against the author : one wrote a letter to 
a great minister, assuring him Mr. Pope was 
the greatest enemy the government had ; and 
another bought his image in clay, to execute 
him in effigy ; with which sad sort of satisfac- 
tion the gentlemen were a little comforted. 

" Some false editions of the book having an 
owl in their frontispiece, the true one to distin- 
guish, fixed in his stead an ass laden with 
authors. Then another surreptitious one being 
printed with the same ass, the new edition in 
octavo returned for distinction to the owl again. 
Hence arose a great contest of booksellers 
against booksellers, and advertisements against 



POPE. 



283 



advertisements; some recommending the edition 
of the owl, and others the edition of the ass ; 
by which names they came to be distinguished, 
to the great honour also of the gentlemen of the 
' Dunciad.' " 

Pope appears by this narrative to have con- 
templated his victory over the " Dunces" with 
great exultation ; and such was his delight in 
the tumult which he had raised, that for awhile 
his natural sensibility was suspended, and he 
read reproaches and invectives without emotion, 
considering them only as the necessary effects of 
that pain which he rejoiced in having given. 

It cannot however be concealed, that by his 
own confession, he was the aggressor, for no- 
body believes that the letters in the " Bathos" 
were placed at random ; and it may be dis- 
covered that, when he thinks himself concealed, 
he indulges the common vanity of common 
men, and triumphs in those distinctions which 
he had affected to despise. He is proud that 
his book was presented to the King and Queen 
by the right honourable Sir Robert Walpole ; 
he is proud that they had read it before ; he is 
proud that the edition was taken off by the no- 
bilitv and persons of the first distinction. 

The edition of which he speaks was, I believe, 
that which, by telling in the text the names, 
and in the notes the characters, of those whom 
he had satirized, was made intelligible and di- 
verting. The critics had now declared their 
approbation of the plan, and the common reader 
began to like it without fear ; those who were 
strangers to petty literature, and therefore un- 
able to decipher initials and blanks, had now 
names and persons brought within their view, 
and delighted in the visible effect of those shafts 
of malice which they had hitherto contemplated 
as shot into the air. 

Dennis, upon the fresh provocation now given 
him, renewed the enmity which had for a time 
been appeased by mutual civilities ; and pub- 
lished remarks which he had till then suppress- 
ed, upon " The Rape of the Lock." Many 
more grumbled in secret, or vented their re- 
sentment in the newspapers by epigrams or in- 
vectives. • 

Ducket, indeed, being mentioned as loving 
Burnet with " pious passion," pretended that 
his moral character was injured, and for some 
time declared his resolution to take vengeance 
with a cudgel. But Pope appeased him, by 
changing " pious passion" to " cordial friend- 
ship;" and by a note, in which he vehemently 
disclaims the malignity of meaning imputed to 
the first expression. 

Aaron Hill, who was represented as diving 
for the prize, expostulated with Pope in a man- 
ner so much superior to all mean solicitation, 
that Pope was reduced to sneak and shuffle, 
sometimes to deny, and sometimes to apologize : 



he first endeavours to wound, and is then afraid 
to own that he meant a blow. 

The " Dunciad," in the complete edition, is 
addressed to Dr. Swift : of the notes, part were 
written by Dr. Arbuthnot ; and an apologeti- 
cal letter was prefixed, signed by Cleland, but 
supposed to have been written by Pope. 

After this general war upon dulness, he" seems 
to have indulged himself awhile in tranquillity; 
but his subsequent productions prove that he 
was not idle. He published (1731) a poem on 
" Taste," in which he very particularly and se- 
verely criticises the house, the furniture, the 
gardens, and the entertainments of Timon, a 
man of great wealth and little taste. By Ti- 
mon he was universally supposed, and by the 
Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is ad- 
dressed, was privately said, to mean the Duke 
of Chandos ; a man perhaps too much delighted 
with pomp and show, but of a temper kind and 
beneficent, and who had consequently the voice 
of the public in his favour. 

A violent outcry was therefore raised against 
the ingratitude and treachery of Pope, who was 
said to have been indebted to the patronage of 
Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds, 
and who gained the opportunity of insulting him 
by the kindness of his invitation. 

The receipt of the thousand pounds Pope 
publicly denied ; but, from the reproach which 
the attack on a character so amiable brought 
upon him, he tried all means of escaping. The 
name of Cleland was again employed in an apo- 
logy, by which no man was satisfied ; and he 
was at last reduced to shelter his temerity behind 
dissimulation, and endeavour to make that be 
disbelieved which he never had confidence openly 
to deny. He wrote an exculpatory letter to 
the duke, which was answered with great mag- 
nanimity, as by a man who accepted his excuse 
without believing his professions. He said, 
that to have ridiculed his taste, or his build- 
ings, had been an indifferent action in another 
man; but that in Pope, after the reciprocal 
kindness that had been exchanged between them, 
it had been less easily excused. 

Pope, in one of his letters, complaining of the 
treatment which his poem had found, " owns 
that such critics can intimidate him, nay almost 
persuade him to write no more, which is a 
compliment this age deserves." The man who 
threatens the world is always ridiculous ; for 
the world can easily go on without him, and in 
a short time will cease to miss him. 1 have 
heard of an idiot, who used to revenge his 
vexations by lying all night upon the bridge. 
" There is nothing," says Juvenal, " that a 
man will not believe in his own favour." Pope 
had been flattered till he thought himself one, 
of the moving powers in the system of life. 
When he talked of laying down his pen, those 



284 



POPE. 



who sat round him entreated and implored ; 
and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that 
they went away and laughed. 

The following year deprived him of Gay, a 
man whom he had known early, and whoi x he 
seemed to love with more tenderness than any 
other of his literary friends. Pope was now 
forty -four years old ; an age at which the mind 
hegins less easily to admit new confidence, and 
the will to grow less flexible; and when, there- 
fore, the departure of an old friend is very ac- 
curately felt. 

In the next year he lost his mother, not by an 
unexpected death, for she lasted to the age of 
ninety-three ; but she did not die unlamented. 
The filial piety of Pope was in the highest de- 
gree amiable and exemplary; his parents had 
the happiness of living till he was at the summit 
of poetical reputation, till he was at ease in his 
fortune, and without a rival in his fame, and 
found no diminution of his respect or tender- 
ness. Whatever was his pride, to them he was 
obedient ; and whatever was his irritability, to 
them he was gentle. Life has, among its sooth- 
ing and quiet comforts, few things better to 
give than such a son. 

One of the passages of Pope's life which seems 
to deserve some inquiry was a publication of 
letters between him and many of his friends, 
which falling into the hands of Curll, a rapa- 
cious bookseller of no good fame, were by him 
printed and sold. This volume containing some 
letters from noblemen, Pope incited a prosecu- 
tion against him in the House of Lords for 
breach of privilege, and attended himself to 
stimulate the resentment of his friends. Curll 
appeared at the bar, and, knowing himself in 
no great danger, spoke of Pope with very little 
reverence : " He has,"' said Curll, " a knack at 
versifying, but in prose I think myself a match 
for him." When the orders of the House were 
examined, none of them appeared to be in- 
fringed; Curll went away triumphant, and 
Pope was left to seek some other remedy. 

Curll's account was, that one evening a man 
in a clergyman's gown, but with a lawyer's 
band, brought and offered to sale a number of 
printed volumes, which he found to be Pope's 
epistolary correspondence ; that he asked no 
name, and was told none, but gave the price 
demanded, and thought himself authorized to 
use his purchase to his own advantage. 

That Curll gaA r e a true account of the trans- 
action it is reasonable to believe, because no 
falsehood was ever detected ; and when, some 
years afterwards, I mentioned it to Lintot, the 
son of Bernard, he declared his opinion to be, 
that Pope knew better than any body else how 
Curll obtained the copies, because another was j 
at the same time sent to himself, for which no j 
price had ever been demanded, as he made j 
known his resolution not to pay a porter, and 



consequently not to deal with a nameless 
agent. 

Such care had been taken to make them pub- 
lic, that they were sent at once to two book- 
sellers ; to Curll, who was likely to seize them 
as prey ; and to Lintot, who might be expected 
to give Pope information of the seeming injury. 
Lintot, I believe, did nothing ; and Curll did 
what was expected. That to make them public 
was the only purpose may be reasonably sup- 
posed, because the numbers offered to sale 
by the private messengers showed that hope 
of gain could not have been the motive of the 
impression. 

It seems that Pope being desirous of printing 
his Letters, and not knowing how to do with- 
out imputation of vanity, what has in this 
country been done very rarely, contrived an ap- 
pearance of compulsion ; that, when he could 
complain that his letters were surreptitiously 
published, he might decently and defensively 
publish them himself. 

Pope's private correspondence, thus promul- 
gated, filled the nation with praises of his can- 
dour, tenderness, and benevolence, the purity of 
his purposes, and the fidelity of his friendship. 
There were some letters, which a very good or 
a very wise man would wish suppressed ; but, 
as they had been already exposed, it was im- 
practicable now to retract them. 

From the perusal of those Letters, Mr. Allen 
first conceived the desire of knowing him ; and 
with so much zeal did he cultivate the friend- 
ship which he had newly formed, that when 
Pope told his purpose of vindicating his own 
property by a genuine edition, he offered to pay 
the cost. 

This however Pope did not accept ; but in 
time solicited a subscription for a quarto volume, 
which appeared (1737) I believe, with sufficient 
profit. In the preface he tells, that his Letters 
were reposited in a friend's library, said to be 
the Earl of Oxford's, and that the copy thence 
stolen was sent to the press. The story was 
doubtless received with different degrees of 
credit. It may be suspected that the preface to 
the Miscellanies was written to prepare the 
public for such an incident ; and to strengthen 
this opinion, James Worsdale, a painter, who 
was employed in clandestine negotiations, but 
whose veracity was very doubtful, declared 
that he was the messenger who carried, by 
Pope's direction, the books to Curll. 

When they were thus published and avowed, 
as they had relation to recent facts and persons 
either then living or not yet forgotten, they may 
be supposed to have found readers ; but as the 
facts were minute, and the characters, being 
either private or literary, were little known or 
little regarded, they awakened no popular kind- 
ness or resentment : the book never became 
much the subject of conversation ; some read it 



POPE. 



285 



as a contemporary history, and soma perhaps as 
a model of epistolary language ; but those who 
read it did not talk of it. Not much therefore 
was added by it to fame or envy; nor do I re- 
member that it produced either public praise or 
public censure. 

It had however, ki some degree, the recom- 
mendation of novelty ; our language had few 
letters, except those of statesmen. Howel, in- 
deed, about a century ago, published his Letters, 
which are commended by Morhoff, and which 
alone, of his hundred volumes, continue his 
memory. Loveday's Letters were printed only 
once ; those of Herbert and Suckling are hardly 
known. Mrs. Phillip's [Orinda's] are equally 
neglected. And those of Walsh seem written 
as exei'cises, and were never sent to any living 
mistress or friend. Pope's epistolary excellence 
had an open field ; he had no English rival liv- 
ing or dead. 

Pope is seen in this collection as connected 
with the other contemporary wits, and certainly 
suffers no disgrace in the comparison; but it 
must be remembered, that he had the power of 
favouring himself; he might have originally 
had publication in his mind, and have written 
with care, or have afterwards selected those 
which he had most happily conceived or most 
diligently laboured ; and I know not whether 
there does not appear something more studied 
and artificial* in his productions than the rest, 
except one long letter by Bolingbroke, composed 
with the skill and industry of a professed au- 
thor. It is indeed not easy to distinguish af- 
fectation from habit; he that has once studious- 
ly formed a style rarely writes afterwards with 
complete ease. Pope may be said to write al- 
ways with his reputation in his head; Swift, 
perhaps, like a man who remembered he was 
writing to Pope ; but Arbuthnot, like one who 
lets thoughts drop from his pen as they rise into 
his mind. 

Before these Letters appeared, he published 
the first part of what he persuaded himself to 
think a system of ethics, under the title of 
" An Essay on Man;" which, if his letter to 
Swift (of Sept. 14. 1725) be rightly explained 
by the commentator, had been eight years un- 
der his consideration, and of which he seems to 
have desired the success with great solicitude. 
He had now many open and doubtless many 
secret enemies. The " Dunces" were yet 
smarting with the war ; and the superiority 
which he publicly arrogated disposed the world 
to wish his humilation. 

All this he knew, and against all this he pro- 
vided. His own name, and that of his friend 



* These Letters were evidently prepared for the 
press by Pope himself. Some of the originals, lately 
diotovered, will prove this beyond all dispute.— C. 



to whom the work is inscribed, were in the first 
editions carefully suppressed ; and the poeuij 
being of a new kind, was ascribed to one or an- 
other, as favour determined or conjecture wan- 
dered : it was given, says Warburton, to every 
man, except him only who could write it. 
Those who like only when they like the author, 
and who are under the dominion of a name, 
condemned it; and those admired it who are 
willing to scatter praise at random, which, 
while it is unappropriated, excites no envy. 
Those friends of Pope that were trusted with 
the secret, went about lavishing honours on the 
new-born poet, and hinting that Pope was never 
so much in danger from any former rival. 

To those authors whom he had personally of- 
fended, and to those whose opinion the world 
considered as decisive, and whom he suspected 
of envy or malevolence, he sent his essay as a 
present before publication, that they might de- 
feat their own enmity by praises which they 
could not afterwards decently retract. 

With these precautions, 1733, was published 
the first part of the " Essay on Man." There 
had been for some time a report that Pope was 
busy on a system of morality ; but this design 
was not discovered in the new poem, which had 
a form and a title with which its readers were 
unacquainted. Its reception was not uniform ; 
some thought it a very imperfect piece, though 
not without good lines. When the author was 
unknown, some, as will always happen, fa- 
voured him as an adventurer, and some cen- 
sured him as an intruder ; but all thought him. 
above neglect ; the sale increased and editions 
were multiplied. 

The subsequent editions of the first epistle, 
exhibited two memorable corrections. At first, 
the poet and his fri'end 

Expatiate freely o'er the scene cf man, 
A mighty maze of walks without a plan ; 

For which he wrote afterwards, 

A mighty maze, but not without a flan : 

for, if there were no plan, it were in vain to 
describe or to trace the maze. 

The other alteration was of these lines : 

And spite of pride, and in thy reason's spite, 
One truth is "dear, whatever is, is right ; 

but having afterwards discovered, or been 
shown, that the " truth," which subsisted " in 
spite of reason" could not be very " clear," he 
substituted 

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite: 

To such oversights will the most vigorous 
mind be liable when it is employed at once upon 
argument and poetry. 
Oo 



286 



POPE. 



The second and third epistles were published ; 
and Pope was, I believe, more and more sus- 
pected of writing them; at last, in 1734, he 
avowed the fourth, and claimed the honour of a 
moral poet. 

In the conclusion it is sufficiently acknow- 
ledged, that the doctrine of the " Essay on 
Man" was received from Bolingbroke, who is 
said to have ridiculed Pope, among those who 
enjoyed his confidence, as having adopted and 
advanced principles of which he did not per- 
ceive the consequence, and as blindly propagat- 
ing opinions contrary to his own. That those 
communications had been consolidated into a 
scheme regularly drawn, and delivered to Pope, 
from whom it returned only transformed from 
prose to verse, has been reported, but can hardly 
be true. The Essay plainly appears the fabric 
of a poet ; what Bolingbroke supplied could be 
only the first principles; the order, illustration, 
and embellishments, must all be Pope's. 

These principles it is not my business to clear 
from obscurity, dogmatism, or falsehood ; but 
they were not immediately examined ; philoso- 
phy and poetry have not often the same readers ; 
and the Essay abounded in splendid amplifica- 
tions and sparkling sentences, which were read 
and admired with no great attention to their 
ultimate purpose ; its flowers caught the eye, 
which did not see what the gay foliage con- 
cealed, and for a time flourished in the sun- 
shine of universal approbation. So little was any 
evil tendency discovered, that, as innocence is 
unsuspicious, many read it for a manual of piety. 

Its reputation soon invited a translator. It 
was first turned into French prose, and after- 
wards by Resnel into verse. Both translations 
fell into the hands of Crousaz, who first, when 
he had the version in prose, wrote a general 
censure, and afterwards reprinted Resnel's 
version, with particular remarks upon every 
paragraph. 

Crousaz was a professor of Switzerland, emi- 
nent for his treatise of Logic and his " Examen 
de Pyrrhonisme ;" and, however little known 
or regarded here, was no mean antagonist. 
His mind was one of those in which philosophy 
and piety are happily united. He was accus- 
tomed to argument and disquisition, and perhaps 
was grown too desirous of detecting faults ; but 
his intentions were always right, his opinions 
were solid, and his religion pure. 

His incessant vigilance for the promotion of 
piety disposed him to look with distrust upon 
all metaphysical systems of theology, and all 
schemes of virtue and happiness purely rational; 
and therefore it was not long before he was 
persuaded that the positions of Pope, as they 
terminated for the most part in natural religion, 
were intended to draw mankind away from re- 
velation, and to represent the whole course of 
things as a necessary concatenation of indis- 



soluble fatality ; and it is undeniable, that in 
many passages a religious eye may easily dis- 
cover expressions not very favourable to morals 
or to liberty. 

About this time Warburton began to make 
his appearance in the first ranks of learning. 
He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind 
fervid and vehement, supplied by incessant and 
unlimited inquiry, with wonderful extent and 
variety of knowledge, which yet had not op- 
pressed his imagination nor clouded his perspi- 
cacity. To every work he brought a memory 
full fraught, together with a fancy fertile of 
original combinations, and at once exerted the 
powers of the scholar, the reasoner, and the wit. 
But his knowledge was too multifarious to be 
always exact, and his pursuits too eager to be 
always cautious. His abilities gave him a 
haughty confidence, which he disdained to con- 
ceal or mollify ; and his impatience of opposi- 
tion disposed him to treat his adversaries with 
such contemptuous superiority as made his 
readers commonly his enemies, and excited 
against the advocate the wishes of some who 
favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted 
the Roman emperor's determination, oderint 
dum metuant ; he used no allurements of gentle 
language, but wished to compel rather than 
persuade. 

His style is copious without selection, and 
forcible without neatness ; he took the words 
that presented themselves ; his diction is coarse 
and impure ; and his sentences are unmeasured. 

He had, in the early part of his life, pleased 
himself with the notice of inferior wits, and 
corresponded with the enemies of Pope. A 
letter* was produced, when he had perhaps 
himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, 
" Dry den, I observe, borrows for want of lei- 
sure, and Pope for want of genius ; Milton out 
of pride, and Addison out of modesty." And 
when Theobald published " Shakspeare," in 
opposition to Pope, the best notes were supplied 
by Warburton. 

But the time was now come when Warbur- 
ton was to change his opinion ; and Pope was 
to find a defender in him who had contributed 
so much to the exaltation of his rival. 

The arrogance of Warburton excited against 
him every artifice of offence, and therefore it 
may be supposed that his union with Pope was 
censured as hypocritical inconstancy ; but sure- 
ly to think differently, at different times, of 
poetical merit, may be easily allowed. Such 
opinions are often admitted, and dismissed, 
without nice examination. Who is there that 
has not found reason for changing his mind 
about questions of greater importance ? 



* This letter is in Mr. Malone's Supplement tc 
Shakspeare, vol, i. p. 223.— 0. 



P OPE. 



287 



Warburton, whatever was his motive, under- 
took, without solicitation, to rescue Pope from 
the talons of Crousaz, by freeing him from the 
imputation of favouring fatality, or rejecting 
revelation, and from month to month continued 
a vindication of the " Essay on Man," in the 
literary journal of that time, called " The Re- 
public of Letters." 

Pope, who probably began to doubt the ten- 
dency of his own work, was glad that the posi- 
tions, of which he perceived himself not to 
know the full meaning, could by any mode of 
interpretation be made to mean well. How 
much he was pleased with his gratuitous de- 
fender, the following letter evidently shows : 
" Sir, April 11, 1732. 

" I have just received from Mr. R. two more 
of your letters. It is in the greatest hurry im- 
aginable that I write this ; but I cannot help 
thanking you in particular for your third letter, 
which is so extremely clear, short, and full, 
that I think Mr. Crousaz ought never to have 
another answer, and deserved not so good a one. 
I can only say, you do him too much honour, 
and me too much right, so odd as the expression 
seems ; for you have made my system as clear 
as I ought to have done, and could not. It is 
indeed the same system as mine, but illustrated 
with a ray of your own, as they say our natu- 
ral body is the same still when it is glorified. 
1 am sure I like it better than I did before, 
and so will every man else. I know I meant 
just what you explain ; but I did not explain 
my own meaning so well as you. You under- 
stand me as well as I do myself; but you ex- 
press me better than I could express myself. 
Pray accept the sincerest acknowledgments. 
I cannot but wish these letters were put toge- 
ther in one book, and intend (with your leave) 
to procure a translation of part at least, or of 
all of them, into French : but I shall not 
proceed a step without your consent and opi- 
nion," &c. 

By this fond and eager acceptance of an ex- 
culpatory comment, Pope testified that, what- 
ever might be the seeming or real import of the 
principles which he had received from Boling- 
broke, he had not intentionally attacked religion ; 
and Bolingbroke, if he meant to make him, 
without his own consent, an instrument of mis- 
chief, found him now engaged, with his eyes 
open, on the side of truth. 

It is known that Bolingbroke concealed from 
Pop* his real opinions. He once discovered 
them to Mr. Hooke, who related them again to 
Pope, and was told by him that he must have 
mistaken the meaning of what he heard ; and 
Bolingbi'oke, when Pope's uneasiness incited 
him to desire an explanation, declared that 
Hooke had misunderstood him. 

Bolingbroke hated Warburton, who had 
drawn his pupil from him; and a little before 



Pope's death, they had a dispute, from which 
they parted with mutual aversion. 

From this time Pope lived in the closest inti- 
macy with his commentator, and amply re- 
warded his kindness and his zeal ; for he intro- 
duced him to Mr. Murray, by whose interest 
he became preacher at Lincoln's-Inn ; and to 
Mr. Allen, who gave him his niece and his 
estate, and by consequence a bishopric. When 
he died, he left him the property of his works ; 
a legacy which may be reasonably estimated at 
four thousand pounds. 

Pope's fondness for the " Essay on Man" ap- 
peared by his desire of its propagation. Dob- 
son, who had gained reputation by his version 
of Prior's " Solomon," was employed by him 
to translate it into Latin verse, and was for 
that purpose some time at Twickenham ; but 
he left his work, whatever was the reason, un- 
finished, and, by Benson's invitation, undertook 
the longer task of " Paradise Lost." Pope 
then desired his friend to find a scholar who 
should turn his Essay into Latin prose ; but no 
such performance has ever appeared. 

Pope lived at this time a??iong the great, with 
that reception and respect to which his works 
entitled him, and which he had not impaired 
by any private misconduct or factious partiality. 
Though Bolingbroke was his friend, Walpole 
was not his enemy ; but treated him with so 
much consideration, as, at his request, to solicit 
and obtain from the French minister an abbey 
for Mr. Southcot, whom he considered himself 
as obliged to reward, by this exertion of his in- 
terest, for the benefit which he had received 
from his attendance in a long illness. 

It was said, that, when the court was at 
Richmond, Queen Caroline had declared her 
intention to visit him. This may have been 
only a careless effusion, thought on no more : 
the report of such notice, however, was soon in 
many mouths ; and, if I do not forget or mis- 
apprehend Savage's account, Pope, pretending 
to decline what was not yet offered, left his 
house for a time, not, I suppose, for any other 
I'eason than lest he should be thought to stay at 
home in expectation of an honour which would 
not be conferred. He was therefore angry at 
Swift, who represents him as " refusing the 
visits of a queen," because he knew that what 
had never been offered had never been refused. 

Besides the general system of morality, sup- 
posed to be contained in the " Essay on Man," 
it was his intention to write distinct poems 
upon the different duties or conditions of life ; 
one of which is the Epistle to Lord Bathurst 
(17S8) " On the Use of Riches," a piece on 
which he declared great labour to have been 
bestowed. * 



Spence. 



288 



V P E. 



Into this poem some hints are historically 
thrown, and some known characters are intro- 
duced, with others of which it is difficult to 
say how far they are real or fictitious ; but the 
praise of Kyrl, the Man of Ross, deserves par- 
ticular examination, who, after a long and 
pompous enumeration of his public works and 
private charities, is said to have diffused all 
those blessings from Jive hundred a-year. Won- 
ders are willingly told and willingly heard. The 
truth is, 'that Kyrl was a man of known in- 
tegrity and active benevolence, by whose solici- 
tation the wealthy were persuaded to pay con- 
tributions to his charitable schemes ; this in- 
fluence he obtained by an example of liberality 
exerted to the utmost extent of his power, and 
was thus enabled to give more than he had. This 
account Mr. Victor received from the minister 
of the place ; and I have preserved it, that the 
praise of a good man, being made more credible, 
may be more solid. Narrations of romantic 
and impracticable virtue will be read with won- 
der, but that which is unattainable is recom- 
mended in vain ; that good may be endeavoured, 
it must be shown to be possible. 

This is the only piece in which the author has 
given a hint of his religion, by ridiculing the 
ceremony of burning the pope ; and by men- 
tioning with some indignation the inscription 
on the Monument. 

When this poem was first published, the dia- 
logue having no letters of direction, was per- 
plexed and obscure. Pope seems to have writ- 
ten with no very distinct idea ; for he calls that 
an " Epistle to Bathurst," in which Bathurst 
is introduced as speaking. 

He afterwards (1734) inscribed to Lord Cob- 
ham his " Characters of Men," written with 
close attention to the operations of the mind 
and modifications of life. In this poem he has 
endeavoured to establish and exemplify his fa- 
vourite theory of the ruling passion, by which 
he means an original direction of desire to some 
particular object; an innate affection, which 
gives all action a determinate and invariable 
tendency, and operates upon the whole system 
of life, either openly, or more secretly by the 
intervention of some accidental or subordinate 
propension. 

Of any passion, thus innate and irresistible,, 
the existence may reasonably be doubted. Hu- 
man characters are by no means constant ; men 
change by change of place, of fortune, of ac- 
quaintance; he who is at one time a lover of 
pleasure, is at another a lover of money. Those 
indeed who attain any excellence commonly 
spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not 
often gained upon easier terms. But to the 
particular species of excellence men are directed, 
not by an ascendant planet or predominating 
humour, but by the first book which they read, 
gome early conversation which they heard, 



or some accident which excited ardour and 
emulation. 

It must at least be allowed that this ruling 
passion, antecedent to reason and observation, 
must have an object independent on human con- 
trivance ; for there can be no natural desire of 
artificial good. No man therefore can be born, 
in the strict acceptation, a lover of money; for 
he may be born where money does not exist : nor 
can he be born, in a moral sense, a lover of his 
country ; for society, politically regulated, is a 
state contradistinguished from a state of nature ; 
and any attention to that coalition of interests 
which makes the happiness of a country is pos- 
sible only to those whom inquiry and reflection 
have enabled to comprehend it. 

This doctrine is in itself pernicious as well 
as false; its tendency is to produce the belief of 
a kind of moral predestination, or over-ruling 
principle which cannot be resisted ; he that ad- 
mits it is prepared to comply with every desire 
that caprice or opportunity shall excite, and to 
flatter himself that he submits only to the law- 
ful dominion of Nature, in obeying the resist- 
less authority of his ruling passion. 

Pope has formed his theory with so little 
skill, that, in the examples by which he illus- 
trates and confirms it, he has confounded pas- 
sions, appetites, and habits. 

To the " Characters of Men," he added soon 
after, in an epistle supposed to have been ad- 
dressed to Martha Blount, but which the last 
edition has taken from her, the " Characters of 
Women." This poem, which was laboured 
with great diligence, and in the author's opinion 
with great success, was neglected at its first 
publication, as the commentator supposes, be- 
cause the public was informed, by an advertise- 
ment, that it contained no character drawn from 
the life ; an assertion which Pope probably did 
not expect, nor wish to have been believed, and 
which he soon gave his readers sufficient reason 
to distrust, by telling them in a note that the 
work was imperfect, because part of his subject 
was vice too high to be yet exposed. 

The time however soon came in which it was 
safe to display the Dutchess of Marlborough 
under the name of Alossa ; and her character 
was inserted with no great honour to the wri- 
ter's gratitude. 

He published from time to time (between 
1730 and 1740) imitations of different poems of 
Horace, generally with his name, and once, as 
was suspected, without it. What he was upon 
moral principles ashamed to own, he ought to 
have suppressed. Of these pieces it is useless 
to settle the dates, as they had seldom much 
relation to the times, and perhaps had been long 
in his hands. 

This mode of imitation, in which the ancients 
are familiarized, by adapting their sentiments 
to modern topics, by making Horace say of 



POPE. 



289 



Shakspeare what he originally said of Ennius, 
and accommodating his satires on Pantolabus 
and Nomentanus to the flatterers and prodigals 
of our time, was first practised in the Reign of 
Charles the second by Oldham and Rochester ; 
at least I remember no instances more ancient. 
It is a kind of middle composition between 
translation and original design, which pleases 
when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable, 
and the parallels lucky. It seems to have been 
Pope's favourite amusement ; for he has carried 
it farther than' any former poet. 

He published likewise a revival, in smoother 
numbers, of Dr. Donne's " Satires," which was 
recommended to him by the Duke of Shrews- 
bury and the Earl of Oxford. They made no 
great impression on the public. Pope seems to 
have known their imbecility, and therefore sup- 
pressed them while he was yet contending to 
rise in reputation, but ventured them when he 
thought their deficiencies more likely to be im- 
puted to Donne than to himself. 

The epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, which seems 
to be derived in its first design from " Boileau's 
Address d son Esprit," was published in Janu- 
ary, 1735, about a month before the death of 
him to whom it is inscribed. It is to be regret- 
ted, that either honour or pleasure should have 
been missed by Arbuthnot ; a man estimable 
for his learning, amiable for his life, and vener- 
able for his piety. 

Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, 
skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, 
acquainted with ancient literature, and able to 
animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and 
active imagination ; a scholar with great bril- 
liance of wit ; a wit, who in the crowd of life, 
retained and discovered a noble ardour of reli- 
gious zeal. 

In this poem Pope seems to reckon with the 
public. He vindicates himself from censures ; 
and, with dignity, rather than arrogance, en- 
forces his own claims to kindness and respect. 

Into this poem are interwoven several para- 
graphs which had been before printed as a frag- 
ment, and among them the satirical lines upon 
Addison, of which the last couplet has been 
twice corrected. It was at first, 

Who would not smile if such a man there be? 
Who would not laugh if Addison were he? 

Then, 

Who would not grieve if such a man there he 1 
Who would not laugh if Addison were he ? 

A t last it is, 

Who but must laugh if such a man there be ? 
Who would not weep if Atticus were he 1 

He was at this time at open war with Lord 
Hcrvey, who had distinguished himself as a 



steady adherent to the ministry ; and, being of- 
fended with a contemptuous answer to one of 
his pamphlets,* had summoned Pulteney to a 
duel. Whether he or Pope made the first at- 
tack, perhaps cannot now be easily known : 
he had written an invective against Pope, whom 
he calls, " Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth 
obscure ;" and hints that his father was a hat- 
ter, f To this Pope wrote a reply in verse and 
prose ; the verses are in this poem ; and the 
prose, though it was never sent, is printed 
among his letters, but to a cool reader of the 
present time exhibits nothing but tedious ma- 
lignity. 

His last satires of the general kind were two 
dialogues, named, from the year in which they 
were published, " Seventeen Hundred and 
Thirty-eight." In these poems many are 
praised and many reproached. Pope was then 
entangled in the opposition ; a follower of the 
Prince of Wales, who dined at his house, and 
the friend of many who obstructed and cen- 
sured the conduct of the ministers. His poli- 
tical partiality was too plainly shown : he for- 
got the prudence with which he passed, in his 
earlier years, uninjured and unoffending, through 
much more violent conflicts of faction. 

In the first dialogue, having an opportunity 
of praising Allen of Bath, he asked his leave to 
mention him as a man not illustrious by any 
merit of his ancestors, and called him in his 
verses, "low-born Allen." Men are seldom 
satisfied with praise introduced or followed by 
any mention of defect. Allen seems not to 
have taken any pleasure in his epithet, which 
was afterwards softened]: into " humble Allen." 

In the second dialogue he took some liberty 
with one of the Foxes, among others; which 
Fox, in a reply to Lyttleton, took an oppor- 
tunity of repaying, by reproaching him with 
the friendship of a lampooner, who scattered 
his ink without fear or decency, and against 
whom he hoped the resentment of the legis- 
lature would quickly be discharged. 

About this time Paul Whitehead, a small 
poet, was summoned before the Lords for a 
poem called " Manners," together with Dods- 
ley his publisher. Whitehead, who hung loose 
upon society, sculked and escaped ; but Dods- 
ley's shop and family made his appearance ne- 
cessary. He was, however, soon dismissed ; 



* Intituled, " Sedition and Defamation display- 
ed." 8vo. 1733.— R. 

t AmoDg many MSS. letters, &c. relating to Pope, 
which I have lately seen, is a lampoon in the Bible- 
style, of much humour, but irreverent, in which 
Pope is ridiculed as the son of a hatter — C. 

J On a hint from Warburton. There is however 
reason to think } from the appearance of the house in 
which Allen was born at St. Blaise, that he was not 
of a low, but of a decayed family. — C. 



290 



POPE. 



and the whole process was probably intended 
rather to intimidate Pope than to punish 
Whitehead. 

Pope never afterwards attempted to join the 
patriot with the poet, nor drew his pen upon 
statesmen. That he desisted from his attempts 
of reformation, is imputed, by his commenta- 
tor, to his despair of prevailing over the corrup- 
tion of the time. He was not likely to have 
been ever of opinion, that the dread of his satire 
would countervail the love of power or of mo- 
ney ; he pleased himself with being important 
and formidable, and gratified sometimes his 
pi'ide, and sometimes his resentment ; till at 
last he began to think he should be more safe, 
if he were less busy. 

The " Memoirs of Scriblerus," published 
about this time, extend only to the first book of 
a work projected in concert by Pope, Swift, and 
Arbuthnot, who used to meet in the time of 
Queen Anne, and denominated themselves the 
" Scriblerus Club." Their purpose was to 
censure the abuses of learning by a fictitious 
life of an infatuated scholar. They were dis- 
persed, the design was never completed; and 
- Warburton laments its miscarriage, as an event 
very disastrous to polite letters. 
; If the whole may be estimated by this speci- 
men, which seems to be the production of Ar- 
buthnot, with a few touches perhaps by Pope, 
the want of more will not be much lamented ; 
for the follies which the writer ridicules are so 
little practised, that they are not known ; nor 
can the satire be understood but by the learned : 
he raises phantoms of absurdity, and then 
drives them away. He cures diseases that were 
never felt. 

For this reason this joint production of three 
great writers has never obtained any notice 
from mankind : it has been little read, or when 
read, has been forgotten, as no man could be 
wiser, better, or merrier, by remembering it. 

The design cannot boast of much originality ; 
for, besides its general resemblance to " Don 
Quixote," there will be found in it particular 
imitations of the " History of Mr. Ouffle." 

Swift carried so much of it into Ireland as 
supplied him with hints for his " Travels;" and 
with those the world might have been contented, 
though the rest had been suppressed. 

Pope had sought for images and sentiments 
in a region not known to have been explored by 
many other of the English writers; he had 
consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, 
a class of authors whom Boileau endeavoured 
to bring into contempt, and who are too ge- 
nerally neglected. Pope, however, was not 
ashamed of their acquaintance, nor ungrateful 
for the advantages which he might have derived 
from it. A small selection from the Italians 
who wrote in Latin had been published at Lon- 
don, about the latter end of the last century, 



by a man* who concealed his name, but whom 
his Preface shows to have been well quali- 
fied for his undertaking. This collection Pope 
amplified by more than half, and (1740) 
published it in two volumes, but injuriously 
omitted his predecessor's preface. To these 
books, which had nothing but the mere text, no 
regard was paid ; the authors were still neg- 
lected, and the editor was neither praised nor 
censured. 

He did not sink into idleness ; he had planned 
a work, which he considered as subsequent to 
his " Essay on Man," of which he has given 
this account to Dr. Swift : 

" March 25, 1736. 

" If ever I write any more epistles in verse, 
one of them shall be addressed to you. I have 
long concerted it, and begun it ; but I would 
make what bears your name as finished as my 
last work ought to be, that is to say, more 
finished than any of the rest. The subject is 
large, and will divide into four epistles, which 
naturally follow the ' Essay on Man;' viz. 1. 
Of the Extent and Limits of Human Reason 
and Science. 2. A View of the Useful and 
therefore attainable, and of the unuseful and 
therefore unattainable, Arts. 3. Of the Na- 
ture, Ends, Application, and Use, of different 
Capacities. 4. Of the- Use of Learning, of the 
Science of the World, and of Wit. It will con- 
clude with a satire against the misapplication of 
all these, exemplified by pictures, characters, 
and examples." 

This work, in its full extent, being now af- 
flicted with an asthma, and finding the powers 
of life gradually declining, he had no longer 
courage to undertake; but from the materials 
which he had provided, he added, at Warbur- 
ton's request, another book to the " Dunciad," 
of which the design is to ridicule such studies 
as are either hopeless or useless, as either pur- 
sue what is unattainable, or what, if it be at- 
tained, is of no use. 

When this book was printed (1742) the laurel 
had been for some time upon the head of Cib- 
ber ; a man whom it cannot be supposed that 
Pope could regard With much kindness or es- 
teem, though in one of the imitations of Horace 
he has liberally enough praised the " Careless 
Husband." In the " Dunciad," among other 
worthless scribblers, he had mentioned Cibber ; 
who, in his " Apology," complains of the great 
Poet's unkindness as more injurious, " be- 
cause," says he, " I never have offended him." 

It might have been expected that Pope should 



• Since discovered to have been Atterbury, after- 
wards Bishop of Rochester.— See the Collection of 
that Prelate's Epistolary Correspondence, vol. iv. 

p. 6.— N. 



P OPE. 



«91 



have been, in some degree, mollified by this sub- 
missive gentleness, but no such consequence ap- 
peared. Though he condescended to commend 
Cibber once, he mentioned him afterwards con- 
temptuously in one of his satires, and again in 
his epistle to Arbuthnot ; and in the fourth book 
of the " Dunciad" attacked him with acrimony, 
to which the provocation is not easily discover- 
able. Perhaps he imagined that, in ridiculing 
the Laureate, he satirized those by whom the 
laurel had been given, and gratified that ambi- 
tious petulance with which he affected to insult 
the great. 

The severity of this satire left Cibber no 
longer any patience. He had confidence enough 
in his own powers to believe that he could dis- 
turb the quiet of his adversary, and doubtless 
did not want instigators, who, without any care 
about the victory, desired to amuse themselves 
by looking on the contest. He therefore gave 
the town a pamphlet, in which he declares his 
resolution from that time never to bear another 
blow without returning it, and to tire out his 
adversary by perseverance, if he cannot conquer 
him by strength. 

The incessant and unappeasable malignity of 
Pope he imputes to a very distant cause. Af- 
ter the " Three Hours after Marriage" had 
been driven off the stage, by the offence which 
the mummy and crocodile gave the audience, 
while the exploded scene was yet fresh in me- 
mory, it happened that Cibber played Bayes in 
the "Rehearsal;" and, as it had been usual to 
enliven the part by the mention of any recent 
theatrical transactions, he said, that he once 
thought to have introduced his lovers disguised 
in a mummy and a crocodile. " This," says he, 
" was received with loud claps, which indicated 
contempt of the play." Pope, who was behind 
the scenes, meeting him as he left the stage, 
" attacked him," as he says, " with all the vir- 
ulence of a wit out of his senses ; to which he re- 
plied, " that he would take no other notice of 
what was said by so particular a man, than to 
declare, that as often as he played that part, he 
would repeat the same provocation." 

He shows his opinion to be, that Pope was one 
of the authors of the play which he so zealously 
defended ; and adds an idle story of Pope's be- 
haviour at a tavern. 

The pamphlet was written with little power 
of thought or language, and, if suffered to re- 
main without notice, would have been very soon 
forgotten. Pope had now been enough acquaint- 
ed with human life to know, if his passion had 
not heen too powerful for his understanding, 
that, from a contention like his with Cibber, the 
world seeks nothing but diversion, which is 
given at the expense of the higher character. 
When Cibber lampooned Pope, curiosity was 
excited ; what Pope could say of Cibber nobody 



inquired, but in hope that Pope's asperity might 
betray his pain and lessen his dignity. 

He should therefore have suffered the pam- 
phlet to flutter and die, without confessing that it 
stung him. The dishonour of being shown as 
Cibber's antagonist could never be compensated 
by the victory. Cibber had nothing to lose ; 
when Pope had exhausted all his malignity upon 
him, he would rise in the esteem both of his 
friends and his enemies. Silence only could 
have made him despicable; the blow which did 
not appear to be felt would have been struck in 
vain. 

But Pope's irascibility pi'evailed, and he re- 
solved to tell the whole English world that he 
was at war with Cibber; and, to show that he 
thought him no common adversary, he prepared 
no common vengeance ; he published a new edi- 
tion of the " Dunciad,"* in which he degraded 
Theobald from his painful pre-eminence, and 
enthroned Cibber in his stead. Unhappily the 
two heroes were of opposite characters, and 
Pope was unwilling to lose what he had al- 
ready written; he has therefore depraved his 
poem, by giving to Cibber the old books, the old 
pedantry, and the sluggish pertinacity of Theo- 
hald. 

Pope was ignorant enough of his own interest, 
to make another change, and introduced Osborne 
contending for the prize among the booksellers. 
Osborne was a man entirely destitute of shame, 
without sense of any disgrace but that of pover- 
ty. He told me, when he was doing that which 
raised Pope's resentment, that he should be put 
into the " Dunciad;" but he had the fate of 
" Cassandra." I gave no credit to his predic- 
tion, till in time I saw it accomplished. The 
shafts of satire were directed equally in vain 
against Cibber and Osborne ; being repelled by 
the impenetrable impudence of one, and deaden- 
ed by the impassive dulness of the other. Pope 
confessed his own pain by his anger ; but he gave 
no pain to those who had provoked him. He 
was able to hurt none but himself; by trans- 
ferring the same ridicule from one to another, 
he reduced himself to the insignificance of his 
own magpie, who from his cage calls cuckold at 
a venture. 

Cibber, according to his engagement repaid 
" The Dunciad" with another pamphlet,f which 
Pope said, " would be as good as a dose of harts- 
horn to him ;" but his tongue and his heart were 
at variance. I have heard Mr. Richardson re- 
late, that he attended his father, the painter, on 
a visit, when one of Cibber's pamphlets came 
into the hands of Pope, who said, " These 
things are my diversion." They sat by him 
while he perused it, and saw his features writh- 



* In 17 43. 



f In 1744. 



292 



POPE. 



ing with anguish ; and young Richardson said i 
to his father, when they returned, that he 
hoped to be preserved from such diversion as ' 
had been that day the lot of Pope. 

From this time, finding his diseases more op- 
pressive, and his vital powers gradually declin- 
ing, he no longer strained his faculties with any 
original composition, nor proposed any other 
employment for his remaining life than the re- 
visal and correction of his former works ; in 
which he received advice and assistance from 
Warburton, whom he appears to have trusted 
and honoured in the highest degree. 

He laid aside his epic poem, perhaps without 
much loss to mankind j for his hero was Bru- 
tus the Trojan, who, according to a ridiculous 
fiction, established a colony in Britain. The 
subject therefore was of the fabulous age ; the 
actors were a race upon whom imagination has 
been exhausted, and attention wearied, and to 
whom the mind will not easily be recalled, 
when it is invited in blank verse, which Pope 
had adopted with great imprudence, and, I 
think, without due consideration of the nature 
of our language. The sketch is, at least in 
part, preserved by Ruff head; by which it ap- 
pears, that Pope was thoughtless enough to mo- 
del the names of his heroes with terminations 
not consistent with the time or country in which 
he places them. 

He lingered through the next year, but per- 
ceived himself, as he expresses it, " going down 
the hill." He had for at least five years been 
afflicted with an asthma, and other disorders, 
which his physicians were unable to relieve. 
Towards the end of his life he consulted Dr. 
Thomson, a man who had, by large promises, 
and free censures of the common practice of 
physic, forced himself up into sudden reputa- 
tion. Thomson declared his distemper to be a 
dropsy, and evacuated part of the water by 
tincture of jalap ; but confessed that his belly 
did not subside. Thomson had many enemies, 
and Pope was persuaded to dismiss him. 

While he was yet capable of amusement and 
conversation, as he was one day sitting in the 
air with Lord Bolingbroke and Lord March- 
mont, he saw his favourite Martha Blount at 
the bottom of the terrace, and asked Lord Bo- 
lingbroke to go and hand her up. Bolingbroke, 
not liking his errand, crossed his legs and sat 
still ; but Lord Marchmont, who was younger 
and less captious, waited on the lady, who, 
when he came to her, asked, " What, is he not 
dead yet?" She is said to have neglected him, 
with shameful unkindness, in the latter time of 
his decay; yet, of the little which be had to 
leave, she had a very great part. Their ac- 
quaintance began early; the life of each was 
pictured on the other's mind; their conversa- 
tion therefore was endearing, for when they 
met, there was an immediate coalition of con- 



genial notions. Perhaps he considered her un- 
willingness to approach the chamber of sickness 
as female weakness, or human frailty ; perhaps 
he was conscious to himself of peevishness and 
impatience, or, though he was offended by her 
inattention, might yet consider her merit as 
overbalancing her fault ; and, if he had suffered 
his heart to be alienated from her, he could 
have found nothing that might fill her place ; he 
could only have shrunk within himself; it was 
too late to transfer his confidence or fondness. 

In May, 1744, his death was approaching;* 
on the 6th, he was all day delirious, which he 
mentioned four days afterwards as a suffi- 
cient humilation of the vanity of man ; he af- 
terwards complained of seeing things as through 
a curtain, and in false colours, and one day, in 
the presence of Dodsley, asked what arm it was 
that came out of the wall. He said that his 
greatest inconvenience was inability to think. 

Bolingbroke sometimes wept over him in this 
state of helpless decay; and being told by 
Spence, that Pope, at the intermission of his 
deliriousness, was always saying something 
kind either of his present or his absent friends, 
and that his humanity seemed to have survived 
his understanding, answered, " It has so:" 
and added, " I never in my life knew a man 
that had so tender a heart for his particular 
friends, or more general friendship for man- 
kind." At another time he said, " I have 
known Pope these thirty years, and value my- 
self more in his friendship than"— His grief 
then suppressed his voice. 

Pope expressed undoubting confidence of a 
future state. Being asked by his friend, Mr. 
Hooke, a papist, whether he would not die like 
his father and mother, and whether a priest 
should not be called ; he answered, " I do not 
think it is essential, but it will be very right, 
and I thank you for putting me in mind of it." 

In the morning after the priest had given him 
the last sacraments, he said, " There is nothing 
that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, 
and indeed friendship itself is only a part of 
virtue." 

He died in the evening of the SOth day of 
May, 1744, so placidly, that the attendants did 
not discern the exact time of his expiration. 
He was buried at Twickenham, near his fa- 
ther and mother, where a monument has been 
erected to him by his commentator, the Bishop 
of Gloucester. 

He left the care of his papers to his execu- 
tors ; first to Lord Bolingbroke ;f and, if he 



* Spence. 

t This is somewhat inaccurately expressed. Lord 
Bolingbroke was not an executor; Pope's papers 
were left to him specifically, or, in case of his death, 
to Lord Marchmont. — C. 



POPE. 



293 



should not be living, to the Earl of March- 
mont ; undoubtedly expecting tbem to be proud 
of the trust, and eager to extend his fame. But 
let no man dream of influence beyond his life. 
After a decent time, Dodsley the bookseller 
went to solicit preference as the publisher, and 
was told that the parcel had not been yet in- 
spected : and, whatever was the reason, the 
world has been disappointed of what was " re- 
served for the next age." 

He lost indeed the favour of Bolingbroke, by 
a kind of posthumous offence. The political 
pamphlet, called " The Patriot King," had 
been put into his hands that he might procure 
the impression of a very few copies, to be distri- 
buted, according to the author's direction, among 
his friends, and Pope assured him that no more 
had been printed than were allowed ; but, soon 
after his death, the printer brought and resigned a 
complete edition of fifteen hundred copies, which 
Pope had ordered him to print, and retain in se- 
«ret. He kept, as was observed, his engagement 
to Pope, better than Pope had kept it to hi-s 
friend ; and nothing was known of the transac- 
tion, till, upon the death of his employer, he 
thought himself obliged to deliver the books to 
the right owner, who with great indignation, 
made a fire in his yard, and delivered the whole 
impression to the flames. 

Hitherto nothing had been done which was 
not naturally dictated by resentment of violated 
faith ; resentment more acrimonious, as the 
violator had been more loved or more trusted. 
But here the anger might have stopped ; the in- 
jury was private; and there was little danger 
from the example. 

Bolingbroke, however, was not yet satisfied ; 
his thirst of vengeance incited him to blast the 
memory of the man over whom he had wept in 
his last struggles ; and he employed Mallet, 
another friend of Pope, to tell the tale to the 
public with all its aggravations. Warburton, 
whose heart was warm with his legacy? and 
tender by the recent separation, thought it pro- 
per for him to interpose; and undertook, not 
indeed to vindicate the action, for breach of 
trust has always something criminal, but to ex- 
tenuate it by an apology. Having advanced 
what cannot be denied, that moral obliquity is 
made more or less excusable by the motives that 
produce it, he inquires what evil purpose could 
have induced Pope to break his promise. He 
could not delight his vanity by usurping the 
work, which, though not sold in shops, had been 
shown to a number more than sufficient to pre- 
serve the author's claim ; he could not gratify 
his avarice, for he could not sell his plunder till 
Bolingbroke was dead ; and even then, if the 
copy was left to another, his fraud would 
be defeated, and, if left to himself, would be 
useless. 

Warburton therefore supposes, with great ap- 



pearance of reason, that the irregularity of his 
conduct proceeded wholly from his zeal for Bo- 
lingbroke, who might perhaps have destroyed 
the pamphlet, which Pope thought it his duty 
to preserve, even without its author's approba- 
tion. To this apology an answer was writ- 
ten in " A Letter to the most impudent Man 
living." 

He brought some reproach upon his own me- 
mory by the petulant and contemptuous men- 
tion made in his will of Mr. Allen, and an 
affected repayment of his benefactions. Mrs. 
Blount, as the known friend and favourite of 
Pope, had been invited to the house of Allen, 
where she comported herself with such indecent 
arrogance, that she parted from Mrs. Allen in 
a state of irreconcileable dislike, and the door 
was for ever barred against her. This exclu- 
sion she resented with so much bitterness as to 
refuse any legacy from Pope, unless he left the 
world with a disavowal of obligation to Allen. 
Having been long under her dominion, now 
tottering in the decline of life, and unable to 
resist the violence of her temper, or, perhaps, 
with the prejudice of a lover, persuaded that 
she had suffered improper treatment, he com- 
plied with her demand, and polluted his will 
with female resentment. Allen accepted the 
legacy, which he gave to the hospital at Bath, 
observing, that Pope was always a bad account- 
ant, and that, if to 150?. he had put a cypher 
more, he had come nearer to the truth. * 



* This account of the difference between Pope 
and Mr. Allen is not so circumstantial as it was in 
Johnson's power to have made it. The particulars 
communicated to him concerning it he was too in- 
dolent to commit to writing; the business of this 
note is to supply his omissions. 

Upon an invitation, in which Mrs. Blount was 
included, Mr. Pope made a visit to Mr. Allen, at 
Prior-park; and having occasion to go to Bristol for 
a few days, left Mrs. Blount behind him. In his ab- 
sence Mrs. Blount, who was of the Komish persua- 
sion, signified an inclination to go to the popish 
chapel at Bath, and desired of Mr. Allen the use cf 
his chariot for the purpose ; but he being at that 
time mayor of the city, suggested the impropriety of 
having his carriage seen at the door of a place of 
worship, to which, as a magistrate, he was at least 
restrained from giving a sanction, and might be 
required to suppress, and therefore desired to be 
excused. Mrs. Blount resented this refusal, and 
told Pope of it at his return, and so infected him 
with her rage, that they both left the house ab- 
ruptly.* 

An instance of the lite negligence may be noted 
in his relation of Pope's love of painting, which dif- 

* This is altogether -wrong; Pope kept up his friendship with 
Mr. Allen to the last, as appears by his letters, and Mrs. Blount re- 
mained in Mr. Allen's house some time after the coolness took place 
between her and Mrs. Allen. Allen's conversation with Pope on 
this subject, and his letters to Mrs. Blount, all whose quarrels he 
was obliged to share, will appear in Mr. Bowles's edition of Pops'* 

W,OTkS._C. 

PP 



294 



POPE. 



The person of Pope is well known not to have 
been formed by the nicest model. He has, in 
his account of the " Little Club." compared 
himself to a spider, and by another is described 
as protuberant behind and before. He is said 
to have been beautiful in his infancy; but he 
was of a constitution originally feeble and weak ; 
and, as bodies of a tender frame are easily dis- 
torted, his deformity was probably in part the 
effect of his application. His stature was so 
low, that, to bring him to a level with common 
tables, it was necessary to raise his seat. But 
his face was not displeasing, and his eyes were 
animated and vivid. 

By natural deformity, or accidental distortion, 
his vital functions were so much disordered, that 
his life was a " long disease." His most fre- 
quent assailment was the headach, which he 
used to relieve by inhaling the steam of coffee, 
which he very frequently required. 

Most of what can be told concerning his petty 
peculiarities was communicated by a female do- 
mestic of the Earl of Oxford, who knew him 
perhaps after the middle of life. He was then 
so weak as to stand in perpetual need of female 
attendance ; extremely sensible of cold, so that 
he wore a kind of fur doublet, under a shirt of a 
very coarse warm linen with fine sleeves. When 
he rose, he was invested in bodice made of stiff 
canvass, being scarcely able to hold himself erect, 
till they were laced, and he then put on a flan- 
nel waistcoat. One side was contracted. His 
legs were so slender, that he enlarged their bulk 
with three pair of stockings, which were drawn 
on and off by the maid ; for he was not able to 
dress or undress himself, and neither went to 
bed nor rose without help. His weakness made 
it very difficult for him to be clean. 

His hair had fallen almost all away ; and he 
used to dine sometimes with lord Oxford, pri- 
vately, in a velvet cap. His dress of ceremony 
was black, with a tie-wig, and a little sword. 

The indulgence and accommodation which his 
sickness required, had taught him all the un- 
pleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary 
man. He expected that eveiy thing should give 
way to his ease or humour ; as a child, whose 
parents will not hear her cry, has an unresisted 
dominion in the nursery. 

G'est que V enfant toujours est homme, 
C'est que I'homme est toujours enfant. 



fers much from the information I gave him on that 
head. A picture of Betterton, certainly copied from 
Kneller by Pope,* Lord Mansfield once showed me 
at Kenwood-house, adding that it was the only one 
be ever finished, for that the weakness of bis eyes 
was an obstruction to bis use of the pencil.— H. 



• bee p. 272. 



When he wanted to sleep, he " nodded in com- 
pany;" and once slumbered at his own table 
while the prince of Wales was talking of poe- 
try. 

The reputation which his friendship gave pro- 
cured him many invitations ; but he was a very 
troublesome inmate. He brought no servant, 
and had so many wants, that a numerous at- 
tendance was scarcely able to supply them. 
Wherever he was, he left no room for another, 
because he exacted the attention, and employed 
the activity of the whole family. His errands 
were so frequent and frivolous, that the footmen 
in time avoided and neglected him ; and the Earl 
of Oxford discharged some of the servants for 
their resolute refusal of his messages. The 
maids, when they had neglected their business, 
alleged that they had been employed by Mr. 
Pope. One of his constant demands was of cof- 
fee in the night, and to the woman that waited 
on him in his chamber he was very burdensome ; 
but he was careful to recompense her want of 
sleep ; and Lord Oxford's servant declared, that 
in the house where her business was to answer 
his call, she would not ask for wages. 

He had another fault, easily incident to those 
who, suffering much pain, think themselves en- 
titled to whatever pleasures they can snatch. 
He was too indulgent to his appetite ; he loved 
meat highly seasoned and of strong taste ; and, 
at the intervals of the table, amused himself 
with biscuits and dry conserves. If he sat down 
to a variety of dishes, he would oppress his 
stomach with repletion ; and, though he seemed 
angry when a dram was offered him, did not 
forbear to drink it. His friends, who knew 
the avenues to his heart, pampered him with 
presents of luxury, which he did not suffer t© 
stand neglected. The death of great men is not 
always proportioned to the lustre of their lives. 
Hannibal, says Juvenal, did not perish by the 
javelin or the sword ; the slaughters of Canna? 
were revenged by a ring. Th» death of Pope 
was imputed by some of his friends, to a sil- 
ver saucepan, in which it was his delight to 
heat potted lampreys. 

That he loved too well to eat is certain ; but 
that his sensuality shortened his life will not be , 
hastily concluded, when it is remembered that 
a conformation so irregular lasted six-and-fifty 
years, notwithstanding such pertinacious dili- 
gence of study and meditation. 

In all his intercourse with mankind, he had 
great delight in artifice, and endeavoured to at- 
tain all his purposes by indirect and unsuspected 
methods. " He hardly drank tea without a 
stratagem." If, at the house of his friends, he 
wanted any accommodation, he was not willing 
to ask for it in plain terms, but would mention it 
remotely as something convenient; though, when 
it was procured, he soon made it appear for 
whose sake it had been recommended. Thus ha 



POPE. 



295 



teased Lord Orrery till he obtained a screen. 
He practised his arts on such small occasions, 
that Lady Bolingbroke used to say, in a French 
phrase, that " he played the politician about 
cabbages and turnips." His unjustifiable im- 
pression of " The Patriot King," as it can be 
imputed to no particular motive, must have pro- 
ceeded from his general habit of secrecy and 
cunning : he caught an opportunity of a sly 
trick, and pleased himself with the thought of 
outwitting Bolingbroke. 

In familiar or convivial conversation, it does 
not appear that he excelled. He may be said to 
have resembled Dryden, as being not one that 
was distinguished by vivacity in company. It 
is remarkable, that so near his time, so much 
should be known of what he has written, and 
so little of what he has said : traditional me - 
mory retains no sallies of raillery, nor sentences 
of observation ; nothing either pointed or solid, 
either wise or merry. One apophthegm only 
stands upon record. When an objection, raised 
against his inscription for Shakspeare, was de- 
fended by the authority of " Patrick," he re- 
plied — « horresco referens"— that " he would 
allow the publisher of a dictionary to know the 
meaning of a single word, but not of two words 
put together." 

He was fretful and easily displeased, and al- 
lowed himself to be capriciously resentful. He 
would sometimes leave Lord Oxford silently, 
no one could tell why, and was to be courted 
back by more letters and messages than the 
footmen were willing to carry. The table was 
indted infested by Lady Mary Wortley, who 
was the friend of Lady Oxford, and who, know- 
ing his peevishness, could by no entreaties be re- 
strained from contradicting him, till their dis- 
putes were sharpened to such asperity, that one 
or the other quitted the house. 

He sometimes condescended to be jocular 
with servants or inferiors ; but "by no merri- 
ment, either of others or his own, was h,e ever 
seen excited to laughter. 

Of his domestic character, frugality was a 
part eminently remarkable. Having deter- 
mined not to be dependent, he determined not 
to be in want, and therefore wisely and mag- 
nanimously rejected all temptations to expense 
unsuitable to his fortune. This general care 
must be universally approved : but it some- 
times appeared in petty artifices of parsimony, 
such as the practice of writing his compositions 
on the back of letters, as may be seen in the re- 
maining copy of the " Iliad," by which perhaps 
in five years five shillings were saved ; or in a 
niggardly reception of his friends, and scanti- 
ness of entertainment, as, when he had two 
guests in his house, he would set at supper a 
single pint upon the table ; and, having himself 
taken two small glasses, would retire, and say, 
" Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine." Yet 



he tells his friends, that, " he has a heart for 
all, a house for all, and, whatever they may 
think, a fortune for all." 

He sometimes, however, made a splendid din- 
ner, and is said to have wanted no part of the 
skill or elegance which such performances re- 
quire. That this magnificence should be often 
displayed, that obstinate prudence with which 
he conducted his affairs would not permit, for 
his revenue, certain and casual, amounted only 
to about eight hundred pounds a year, of which 
however he declares himself able, to assign one 
hundred to charity.* 

Of this fortune, which, as it arose from pub- 
lic approbation, was very honourably obtained, 
his imagination seems to have been too full ; 
it would be hard to find a man, so well en- 
titled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted 
so much in talking of his money. In his let- 
ters and his poems, his garden and his grotto, 
his quincunx and his vines, or some hints of his 
opulence, are always to be found. The great 
topic of his ridicule is poverty; the crimes with 
which he reproaches his antagonists are their 
debts, their habitation in the Mint, and their 
want of a dinner. He seems to be of an opi- 
nion not very uncommon in the world, that to 
want money is to want every thing. 

Next to the pleasure of contemplating his 
possessions, seems to be that of enumerating the 
men of high rank with whom he was ac- 
quainted, and whose notice he loudly proclaims 
not to have been obtained by any practices of 
meanness or servility ; a boast which was never 
denied to be true, and to which very few poets 
have ever aspired. Pope never set his genius to 
sale, he never flattered those whom he did not 
love, or praised thosQ, whom he did not esteem. 
Savage, however, remarked, that he began a 
little to relax his dignity when he wrote a dis- 
tich for his " Highness's dog." 

His admiration of the great seems to have in- 
creased in the advance of life. He passed over 
peers and statesmen to inscribe his " Iliad" to 
Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the 
praise had been complete, had his friend's virtue 
been equal to his wit. Why he was chosen for 
so great an honour, it is not now possible to 
know; there is no trace in literary history of 
any particular intimacy between them. The 
name of Congreve appears in the letters among 
those of his other friends, but without any ob- 
servable distinction or consequence. 

To his latter works, however, he took care to 



* Part of it arose from an annuity of two hun- 
dred pounds a- year, -which he had purchased either 
of the late Duke of Buckinghamshire, or the Dutch- 
ess his mother, and which was charged on some 
estate of that family. [See p. 274.] The deed by 
which it was granted was some years in my cus- 
tody.— H. 



296 



POPE. 



annex names dignified with titles, but was not 
very happy in his choice ; for, except Lord Ba- 
th urst, none of his noble friends were such as 
that a good man would wish to have his inti- 
macy with them known to posterity ; he can de- 
rive little honour from the notice of Cobham, 
Burlington, or Bolingbroke. 

Of his social qualities, if an estimate be made 
from his letters, an opinion too favourable can- 
not easily be formed : they exhibit a perpetual 
and unclouded effulgence of general benevolence 
and particular fondness. There is nothing but 
liberality, gratitude, constancy, and tenderness. 
It has been so long said as to be commonly be- 
lieved, that the true characters of men may be 
found in their letters, and that he who writes to 
his friend lays his heart open before him. But 
the truth is, that such were the simple friend- 
ships of the Golden Age, and are now the 
friendships only of children. Very few can 
boast of hearts which they dare lay open to 
themselves, and of which, by whatever accident 
exposed, they do not shun a distinct and con- 
tinued view ; and, certainly, what we hide from 
ourselves we do not show to our friends. There 
is, indeed, no transaction which offers stronger 
temptation to fallacy and sophistication than 
epistolary intercourse. In the eagerness of con- 
versation the first emotions of the mind often 
burst out before they are considered ; in the tu- 
mult of business, interest and passion have 
their genuine effect ; but a friendly letter is a 
calm and deliberate performance in the cool of 
leisure, in the stillness of solitude, and surely 
no man sits down to depreciate by design his 
own character. 

Friendship has no tendency to secure vera- 
city ; for by whom can a man so much wish to 
be thought better than he is, as by him whose 
kindness he desires to gain or keep ! Even in 
writing to the world there is less constraint ; 
the author is not confronted with his reader, 
and takes his chance of approbation among the 
different dispositions of mankind ; but a letter 
is addressed to a single mind, of which the pre- 
judices and partialities are known ; and must 
therefore please, if not by favouring them, by 
forbearing to oppose them. 

To charge those favourable representations, 
which men give of their own minds, with the 
guilt of hypocritical falsehood, would show 
more severity than knowledge. The writer 
commonly believes himself. Almost every 
man's thoughts, while they are general, are 
right ; and most hearts are pure while tempta- 
tion is away. It is easy to awaken generous 
sentiments in privacy ; to despise death when 
there is no danger ; to glow with benevolence 
when there is nothing to be given. While 
such ideas are formed, they are felt ; and self- 
love does not suspect the gleam of virtue to be 
the meteor of fancy. 



If the letters of Pope are considered merely 
as compositions, they seem to be premeditated 
and artificial. It is one thing to write, because 
there is something which the mind wishes to 
discharge ; and another, to solicit the imagina- 
tion, because ceremony or vanity require some- 
thing to be written. Pope confesses his early 
letters to be vitiated with affectation and ambi- 
tion : to know whether he disentangled himself 
from these perverters of epistolary integrity, his 
book and his life must be set in comparison. 

One of his favourite topics is contempt of his 
own poetry. For this, if it had been real, he 
would deserve no commendation : and in this 
he was certainly not sincere, for his high value 
of himself was sufficiently observed ; and of 
what could he be proud but of his poetry ? He 
writes, he says, when " he has just nothing 
else to do;" yet Swift complains that he was 
never at leisure for conversation, because he 
had " always some poetical scheme in his head. " 
It was punctually required that his writing-box 
should be set upon his bed before he rose ; and 
Lord Oxford's domestic related, that in the 
dreadful winter of forty, she was called from 
her bed by him four times in one night, to 
supply him with paper, lest he should lose a 
thought. 

He pretends insensibility to censure and criti- 
cism, though it was observed by all who knew 
him that every pamphlet disturbed his quiet, 
and that his extreme irritability laid him open 
to perpetual vexation ; but he wished to despise 
his critics, and therefore hoped that he did de- 
spise them. 

As he happened to live in two reigns when 
the court paid little attention to poetry, he 
nursed in his mind a foolish disesteem of kings, 
and proclaims that "he never sees courts." 
Yet a little regard shown him by the Prince 
of Wales melted his obduracy ; and he had not 
much to say, when he was asked by his Royal 
Highness, " how he could love a prince while 
he disliked kings?" 

He very frequently professes contempt of the 
world, and represents himself as looking on 
mankind, sometimes with gay indifference, as 
on emmets of a hillock, below his serious atten- 
tion, and sometimes with gloomy indignation, 
as on monsters more worthy of hatred than of 
pity. These were dispositions apparently coun- 
terfeited. How could he despise those whom 
he lived by pleasing, and on whose approbation 
his esteem of himself was superstructed ? Why 
should he hate those to whose favour he owed 
his honour and his ease ? Of things that ter- 
minate in human life, the world is the proper 
judge; to despise its sentence, if it were pos- 
sible, is not just ; and if it were just, is not 
possible. Pope was far enough from this un- 
reasonable temper: he was sufficiently a fool to 
fame, and his fault was that he pretended to 



POPE. 



291 



neglect it. His levity and his sullenness were 
only in his letters ; he passed through common 
life, sometimes vexed, and sometimes pleased, 
with the natural emotions of common men. 

His scorn of the great is too often repeated to 
be real ; no man thinks much of that which he 
despises ; and as falsehood is always in danger 
of inconsistency, he makes it his boast at an- 
other time that he lives among them. 

It is evident that his own importance swells 
often in his mind. He is afraid of writing, lest 
the clerks at the Post-office should know his se- 
crets ; he has many enemies ; he considers him- 
self as surrounded by universal jealousy ; " af- 
ter many deaths, and many dispersions, two or 
three of us," says he, " may still be brought 
together, not to plot, but to divert ourselves, 
and the world too if it pleases;" and they can 
live together, and " show what friends wits 
may be, in spite of all the fools in the world." 
All this while it was likely that the clerks did 
not know his hand ; he certainly had no more 
enemies than a public character like his inevi- 
tably excites ; and with what degree of friend- 
ship the wits might live, very few were so much 
fools as ever to inquire. 

Some part of this pretended discontent he 
learned from Swift, and expresses it, I think, 
most frequently in his correspondence with 
him. Swift's resentment was unreasonable, 
but it was sincere ; Pope's was the mere mi- 
micry of his friend, a fictitious part which he 
began to play before it became him. When he 
was only twenty-five years old, he related that 
" a glut of study and retirement had thrown 
him on the world," and that there was danger 
lest " a glut of the world should throw him 
back upon study and retirement." To this 
Swift answered with great propriety, that Pope 
had not yet acted or suffered enough in the 
world to have become weary of it. And, in- 
deed, it must have been some very powerful 
reason that can drive back to solitude him who 
has once enjoyed the pleasures of society. 

In the Letters both of Swift and Pope there 
appears such narrowness of mind, as makes them 
insensible of any excellence that has not some 
affinity with their own, and confines their es- 
teem and approbation to so small a number, 
that whoever should form his opinion of the age 
from their representation, would suppose them 
to have lived amidst ignorance and barbarity, 
unable to find among their contemporaries ei- 
ther virtue or intelligence, and persecuted by 
those that could not understand them. 

When Pope murmurs at the world, when he 
professes contempt of fame, when he speaks of 
riches and poverty, of success and disappoint- 
ment, with negligent indifference, he certainly 
does not express his habitual and settled senti- 
ments, but either wilfully disguises his own 
character, or, what is moi*e likely, invests him- 



self with temporary qualities, and sallies out 
in the colours of the present moment. His 
hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, acted 
strongly upon his mind; and, if he differed 
from others, it was not by carelessness ; he was 
irritable and resentful. His malignity to Phi- 
lips, whom he had first made ridiculous, and 
then hated for being angry, continued too long. 
Of his vain desire to make Bentley contemp- 
tible, I never heard any adequate reason. He 
was sometimes wanton in his attacks ; and be- 
fore Chandos, Lady Wortley, and Hill, was 
mean in his retreat. 

The virtues which seem to have had most of 
his affection were liberality and fidelity of 
friendship, in which it does not appear that he 
was other than he describes himself. His for- 
tune did not suffer his charity to be splendid 
and conspicuous ; but he assisted Dodsley with 
a hundred pound, that he might open a shop ; 
and of the subscription of forty pounds a year 
that he raised for Savage, twenty were paid by 
himself. He was accused of" loving money ; 
but his love was eagerness to gain, not solicitude 
to keep it. 

In the duties of friendship he was zealous 
and constant ; his early maturity of mind com- 
monly united him with men older than himself, 
and, therefore, without attaining any consider- 
able length of life, he saw many companions of 
his youth sink into the grave ; but it does not 
appear that he lost a single friend by coldness 
or by injury ; those who loved him once, con- 
tinued their kindness. His ungrateful mention 
of Allen in his will was the effect of his ad- 
herence to one whom he had known much 
longer, and whom he naturally loved with 
greater fondness. His violation of the trust 
reposed in him by Bolingbroke could have no 
motive inconsistent with the warmest affection ; 
he either thought the action so near to indiffer- 
ent that he forgot it, or so laudable that he ex- 
pected his Mend to approve it. 

It was reported, with such confidence as al- 
most to enforce belief, that in the papers in- 
trusted to his executors was found a defamatory 
life of Swift, which, he had prepared as an in- 
strument of vengeance, to be used if any pro- 
vocation should be ever given. About this 
I inquired of the Earl of Marchmont, who 
assured me that no such piece was among his 
remains. 

The religion in which he lived and died was 
that of the church of Rome, to Avhich, in his 
correspondence with Racine, he professes him- 
self a sincere adherent. That he was not scru- 
pulously pious in some part of his life, is known 
by many idle and indecent applications of sen- 
tences taken from the Scriptures; a mode of 
merriment which a good man dreads for its 
profaneness, and a witty man disdains for its 
easiness and vulgarity. But to whatever levi- 



298 



POPE. 



ties he has been betrayed, it does not appear 
that his principles were ever corrupted, or that 
he ever lost his belief of revelation. The posi- 
tions which he transmitted from Bolingbroke 
he seems not to have understood, and was 
pleased with an interpretation that made them 
orthodox. 

A man of such exalted superiority, and so 
little moderation, would naturally have all his 
delinquencies observed and aggravated; those 
who could not deny that he was excellent, would 
rejoice to find that he was not perfect. 

Pei'haps it may be imputed to the unwilling- 
ness with which the same man is allowed to 
possess many advantages, that his learning has 
been depreciated. He certainly was, in his 
early life, a man of great literary curiosity; 
and, when he wrote his " Essay on Criticism," 
had, for his age, a very wide acquaintance with 
books. When he entered into the living world, 
it seems to have happened to him as to many 
others, that he was less attentive to dead mas- 
ters ; he studied in the academy of Paracelsus, 
and made the universe his favourite volume. 
He gathered his notions fresh from reality, not 
from the copies of authors, but the originals of 
nature. Yet there is no reason to believe that 
literature ever lost his esteem ; he always pro- 
fessed to love reading ; and Dobson, who spent 
some time at his house translating his " Essay 
on Man," when I asked him what learning he 
found him to possess, answered, " More than I 
expected." His frequent refei'ences to history, 
his allusions to various kinds of knowledge, and 
his images selected from art and nature, with 
his observations on the operations of the mind 
and the modes of life, show an intelligence per- 
petually on the wing, excursive, vigorous, and 
diligent, eager to pursue knowledge, and atten- 
tive to retain it. 

From this curiosity arose the desire of tx'avel- 
ling, to which he alludes in his verses to Jer- 
vas, and which, though he never found an op- 
portunity to gratify it, did not leave him till his 
life declined. 

Of his intellectual character, the constituent 
and fundamental principle was good sense, a 
prompt and intuitive perception of consonance 
and propriety. He saw immediately, of his 
own conceptions, what was to be chosen, and 
what to be rejected; and, in the works of 
others, what was to be shunned, and what was 
to be copied. ' 

But good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent 
quality, which manages its possessions well, but 
does not increase them ; it collects few materials 
for its own operations, and preserves safety, but 
never gains supremacy. Pope had likewise ge- 
nius ; a mind active, ambitious, and adventur- 
ous, always investigating, always aspiring ; in 
its widest searches still longing to go forward, 
in its highest nights still wishing to be higher ; , 



always imagining something greater than it 
knows* always endeavouring more than it 
can do. 

To assist these powers, he is said to have had 
great strength and exactness of memory. That 
which he had heard or read was not easily lost ; 
and he had before him not only what his own 
meditation suggested, but what he had found in 
other writers that might be accommodated to 
his present purpose. 

These benefits of nature he improved by in- 
cessant and unwearied diligence; he had re- 
course to every source of intelligence, and lost 
no opportunity of information; he consulted 
the living as well as the dead ; he read his com- 
positions to his friends, and was never contented 
with mediocrity when excellence could be at- 
tained. He considered poetry as the business 
of his life ; and, however he might seem to la- 
ment his occupation, hejbllowed it with con- 
stancy ; to make verses was his first laboux*, and 
to mend them was his last. 

From his attention to poetry he was never di- 
verted. If conversation offered any thing that 
could be improved, he committed it to paper ; if 
a thought, or perhaps an expression more happy 
than was common rose to his mind, he was 
careful to write it ; an independent distich was 
preserved for an opportunity of insertion ; and 
some little fragments have been found contain- 
ing lines, or parts of lines, to be wrought upon 
at some other time. 

He was one of those few whose labour is 
their pleasure : he was never elevated to negli- 
gence, nor wearied to impatience; he never 
passed a fault unamended by indifference, nor 
quitted it by despair. He laboured his works, 
first to gain reputation, and afterwards to 
keep it. 

Of composition there are different methods. 
Some employ at once memory and invention, 
and, with little intermediate use of the pen, 
form and polish large masses by continued me- 
ditation, and write their productions only when, 
in their own opinion, they have completed 
them. It is related of Virgil, that his custom 
was to pour out a great number of verses in the 
morning, and pass the day in retrenching exu- 
berances, and correcting inaccuracies. The 
method of Pope, as may be collected from his 
translation, was to write his first thoughts in 
his first words, and gradually to amplify, deco- 
rate, rectify, and refine them. 

With such faculties and such dispositions, he 
excelled every other writer in poetical prudence : 
he wrote in such a manner as might expose him 
to few hazards. He used almost always the 
same fabric of verse : and, indeed, by those few 
essays which he made of any other, he did not 
enlarge his reputation. Of this uniformity the 
certain consequence was readiness and dexte- 
rity. By perpetual practice, language had, In 



POPE. 



299 



his mind, a systematical arrangement; having 
always the same use for words, he had words 
so selected and combined as to be ready at his 
call. This increase of facility he confessed 
himself to have perceived in the progress of his 
translation. 

But what was yet of more importance, his ef- 
fusions were always voluntary, and his subjects 
chosen by himself. His independence secured 
him from drudging at a task, and labouring 
upon a barren topic ; he never exchanged praise 
for money, nor opened a shop of condolence or 
congratulation. His poems, therefore, were 
scarcely ever temporary. He suffered corona- 
tions and royal marriages to pass without a 
song ; and derived no opportunities from recent 
events, or any popularity from the accidental 
disposition of his readers. He was never re- 
duced to the necessity of soliciting the sun to 
shine upon a birth-day, of calling the Graces 
and Virtues to a wedding, or of saying what 
multitudes have said before him. When he 
could produce nothing new, he was at liberty 
to be silent. 

His publications were for the same reason 
never hasty. He is said to have sent nothing 
to the press till it had lain two years under his 
inspection; it is at least certain, that he ven- 
tured nothing without nice examination. He 
suffered the tumult of imagination to subside, 
and the novelties of invention to grow familiar. 
He knew that the mind is always enamoured 
of its own productions, and did not trust his 
first fondness. He consulted his friends, and 
listened with great willingness to criticism; 
and, what was of more importance, he con- 
sulted himself, and let nothing pass against his 
own judgment. 

He professed to have learned his poetry from 
Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was 
presented, he praised through his whole life 
with unvaried liberality ; and perhaps h*is cha- 
racter may receive some illustration, if he be 
compared with his master. 

Integrity of understanding and nicety of dis- 
cernment were not allotted in a less proportion 
to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of 
Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the 
dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the 
rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged 
numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply 
all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and 
professed to write, merely for the people ; and 
when he pleased others, he contented himself. 
He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent 
powers ; he never attempted to make that bet- 
ter which was already good, nor often to mend 
what he must have known to be faulty. He 
wrote, as he tells us, with very little consider- 
ation ; when occasion or necessity called upon 
him, he poured out what the present moment 
happened to supply, and, when once it had 



passed the press, ejected it from his mi-ad ; for 
when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no 
further solicitude. 

Pope was not content to satisfy, he desired to 
excel ; and therefore always endeavoured to do 
his best; he did not court the candour, but 
dared the judgment, of his reader, and, expect- 
ing no indulgence from others, he showed none 
to himself. He examined lines and words with 
minute and punctilious observation, and re- 
touched every part with indefatigable diligence, 
till he had left nothing to be forgiven. 

For this reason he kept his pieces very long 
in his hands, while he considered and recon- 
sidered them. The only poems which can be 
supposed to have been written with such regard 
to the times as might hasten their publication, 
were the two satires of " Thirty-eight;" of 
which Dodsley told me that they were brought 
to him by the author, that they might be fairly 
copied. " Ajgaiost every line," he said, " was 
then written twice over; I gave him a clean 
transcript, which he sent some time afterwards 
to me for the press, with almost every line 
written twice over a second time." 

His declaration, that his care for his works 
ceased at their publication, was not strictly 
true. His parental attention never abandoned 
them ; what he found amiss in the first edition, 
he silently corrected in those that followed. 
He appears to have revised the " Iliad," and 
freed it from some of its imperfections ; and the 
" Essay on Criticism" received many improve- 
ments after its first appearance. It will seldom 
be found that he altered without adding clear- 
ness, elegance, or vigour. Pope had perhaps 
the judgment of Dryden ; but Dryden certainly 
wanted the diligence of Pope. 

In acquired knowledge, the superiority must 
be allowed to Dryden, whose education was 
more scholastic, and who, before he became an 
author, had been allowed more time for study, 
with better means of information. His mind 
has a larger range, and he collects his images 
and illustrations from a more extensive circum- 
ference of science. Dryden knew more of man 
in his general nature, and Pope in his local 
manners. The notions of Dryden were formed 
by comprehensive speculation ; and those, of 
Pope by minute attention. There is more dig- 
nity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more 
certainty in that of Pope. 

Poetry was not the sole praise of either ; for 
both excelled likewise in prose ; but Pope did 
not borrow his prose from his predecessor. 
The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; 
that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden 
observes the motions of his own mind ; Pope 
constrains his mind to his own rules of compo- 
sition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and 
rapid ; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and 
gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising 



soo 



POPE. 



into inequalities, and diversified by the varied 
exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a 
velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled 
by the roller. 

Of genius, that power which constitutes a 
poet; that quality without which judgment is 
cold, and knowledge is inert ; that energy which 
collects, combines, amplifies, and animates ; the 
superiority must, with some hesitation, be al- 
lowed to Dry den. It is not to be inferred, 
that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a 
little, because Dryden had more ; for every 
other writer since Milton must give place to 
Pope ; and even of Dryden it must be said, 
that, if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not 
better poems. Dryden's performances were al- 
ways hasty, either excited by some external oc- 
casion, or extorted by domestic necessity ; he 
composed without consideration, and published 
without correction. What his mind could sup- 
ply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all 
that he sought, and all that he gave. The di- 
latory caution of Pope enabled him to condense 
his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to 
accumulate all that study might produce, or 
chance might supply. If the flights of Dry- 
den, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer 
on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is 
brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and 
constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, 
and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read 
with frequent astonishment, and Pope with 
perpetual delight. 

This parallel will, I hope, when it is well 
considered, be found just ; and if the reader 
should suspect me, as .1 suspect myself, of some 
partial fondness for the memory of Dryden, let 
him not too hastily condemn me : for medita- 
tion and inquiry may, perhaps, show him the 
reasonableness of my determination. 

The Works of Pope are now to be distinctly 
examined, not so much with attention to slight 
faults or petty beauties, as to the general cha- 
racter and effect of each performance. 

It seems natural for a young poet to initiate 
himself by pastorals, which, not professing to 
imitate real life, require no experience; and, 
exhibiting only the simple operation of un- 
mingled passions, admit no subtle reasoning or 
deep inquiry. Pope's Pastoral's are not how- 
ever composed but with close thought; they 
have reference to the times of the day, the sea- 
sows of the year, and the periods of human life. 
The last, that which turns the attention upon 
age and death, was the Author's favourite. To 
tell of disappointment and misery, to thicken 
the darkness of futurity, and perplex the laby- 
rinth of uncertainty, has been always a deli- 
cious employment of the poets. His preference 
was probably just. I wish, however, that his 



fondness had not overlooked a line in which the 
Zephyrs are made to lament in silence. 

To charge these Pastorals with want of in- 
vention, is to require what was never intended. 
The imitations are so ambitiously frequent, that 
the writer evidently means rather to show his 
literature than his wit. It is surely sufficient 
for an author of sixteen, not only to be able to 
copy the poems of antiquity with judicious se- 
lection, but to have obtained sufficient power of 
language, and skill in metre, to exhibit a series 
of versification, which had in English poetry 
no precedent, nor has since had an imitation. 

The design of "Windsor Forest" is evidently 
derived from " Cooper's Hill," with some at- 
tention to Waller's poem on " The Park ;" 
but Pope cannot be denied to excel his masters 
in variety and elegance, and the art of inter- 
changing description, narrative, and morality. 
The objection made by Dennis is the want of 
plan, of a regular subordination of parts ter- 
minating in the principal and original design. 
There is this want in most descriptive poems, 
because as the scenes which they must exhibit 
successively, are all subsisting at the same time, 
the order in which they are shown must by ne- 
cessity be arbitrary, and more is not to be ex- 
pected from the last part than from the first. 
The attention, therefore, which cannot be de- 
tained by suspense, must be excited by divers- 
ity, such as his poem offers to its reader. 

But the desire of diversity may be too much 
indulged; the parts of " Windsor Forest" 
which deserve least praise are those which 
were added to enliven the stillness of the scene, 
the appearance of Father Thames and the trans- 
formation of Lodona. Addison had, in his 
" Campaign," derided the rivers that " rise 
from their oozy beds" to tell stories of heroes; 
and it is therefore strange that Pope should 
adopt a fiction not only unnatural but lately 
censured. The story of Lodona is told with 
sweetness ; but a new metamorphosis is a ready 
and puerile expedient ; nothing is easier than 
to tell how a flower was once a blooming virgin, 
or a rock an obdurate tyrant. 

The " Temple of Fame" has, as Steele 
warmly declared, " a thousand beauties." 
Every part is splendid ; there is great luxuri- 
ance of ornaments ; the original vision of Chau- 
cer was never denied to be much improved ; 
the allegory is very skilfully continued, the 
imagery is properly selected, and learnedly dis- 
played ; yet, with all this comprehension of ex- 
cellence, as its scene is laid in remote ages, and 
its sentiments, if the concluding paragraph be 
excepted, have little relation to general man- 
ners or common life, it never obtained much 
notice, but is turned silently over, and sel- 
dom quoted or mentioned with either praise 
or blame. 



POPE. 



301 



That " The Messiah" excels the " Pollio" is 
no great praise, if it he considered from what 
original the improvements are derived. 

The " Verses on the unfortunate Lady" have 
drawn much attention by the illaudable singu- 
larity of treating suicide with respect ; and they 
must be allowed to be written in some parts 
with vigorous animation, and in others with 
gentle tenderness ; nor has Pope produced any 
poem in which the sense predominates more over 
the diction. But the tale is not skilfully told ; 
it is not easy to discover the character of either 
the Lady or her Guardian. History relates 
that she was about to disparage herself by a 
marriage with an inferior ; Pope praises her for 
the dignity of ambition, and yet condemns the 
uncle to detestation for his pride ; the ambitious 
love of a niece may be opposed by the interest, 
malice, or envy, of an uncle, but never by his 
pride. On such an occasion a poet may be al- 
lowed to be obscure, but inconsistency never can 
be right.* 

The " Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" was under- 
taken at the desire of Steele. In this the author 
is generally confessed to have miscarried ; yet he 
has miscarried only as compared with Dryden, 
for he has far outgone other competitors. Dry- 
den's plan is better chosen ; history will always 
take stronger hold of the attention than fable : 
the passions excited by Dryden are the pleasures 
and pains of real life ; the scene of Pope is laid 
in imaginary existence ; Pope is read with calm 
acquiescence, Dryden with turbulent delight ; 
Pope hangs upon the ear, and Dryden finds the 
passes of the mind. 

Both the odes want the essential constituent 
of metrical compositions, the stated recurrence 
of settled numbers. It may be alleged that Pin- 
dar is said by Horace to have written numeris 
lege solutis ; but, as no such lax performances 
have been transmitted to us, the meaning of that 
expression cannot be fixed ; and perhaps the like 
return might properly be made to a modern 
Pindarist, as Mr. Cobb received from Bentley, 
Who, when he found his criticisms upon a Greek 



* The account herein before given of this lady and 
her catastrophe, cited by Johnson from Ruffhead 
with a kind of acquiescence in the truth thereof, 
seems no other than might have been extracted from 
the verses themselves. I have in my possession a 
letter to Dr. Johnson containing the name of the 
lady ; and a reference to a gentleman well known in 
Ave literary world for her history. Him I have seen ; 
and, from a memorandum of some particulars to the 
purpose, communicated to him by a lady of quality, 
he informs me, that the unfortunate lady's name was 
Withinbury, corruptly pronounced Winbury ; that 
she was in love with Pope, and would have married 
him ; that her guardian, though she was deformed in 
person, looking upon such a match as beneath her, 
sent her to a convent ; and that a noose, and not a 
pword, put an end to her life.— H. 



Exercise, which Cobb had presented, refuted 
one after another by Pindar's authority, cried 
out at last—" Pindar was a bold fellow, but 
thou art an impudent one." 

If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will 
be found that the first stanza consists of sounds, 
well chosen indeed, but only sounds. 

The second consists of hyperbolical common- 
places, easily to be found, and perhaps without 
much difficulty to be as well expressed. 

In the third, however, there are numbers, 
images, harmony, and vigour, not unworthy the 
antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this— ■ 
but every part cannot be the best. 

The next stanzas place and detain us in the 
dark and dismal regions of mythology, where 
neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow, 
can be found : the poet however faithfully at- 
tends us : we have all that can be performed by 
elegance of diction, or sweetness of versification ; 
but what can form avail without better matter? 

The last stanza recurs again to common-places. 
The conclusion is too evidently modelled by that 
of Dryden ; and it may be remarked that both 
end with the same fault ; the comparison of each 
is literal on one side, and metaphorical on tha 
other. 

Poets do not always express their own 
thoughts ; Pcpe, with all this labour in the 
praise of Music, was ignorant of its principles, 
and insensible of its effects. 

One of his greatest, though of his earliest 
works, is the " Essay on Criticism;" which, if 
he had written nothing else, would have placed 
him among the first critics and the first poets, as 
it exhibits every mode of excellence that can em- 
bellish or dignify didactic composition, selection 
of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of 
precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety 
of digression. I know not whether it be pleas- 
ing to consider that he produced this piece at 
twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he 
that delights himself with observing that such 
powers may be soon attained, cannot but grieve 
to think that life was ever at a stand. 

To mention the particular beauties of the Es- 
say would be unprofitably tedious ; but I cannot 
forbear to observe, that the comparison of a stu- 
dent's progress in the sciences with the journey 
of a traveller in the Alps, is perhaps the best 
that English poetry can show. A simile, to be 
perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the 
subject ; must show it to the understanding in a 
clearer view, and display it to the fancy with 
greater dignity, but either of these qualities may 
be sufficient to recommend it. In didactic poe- 
try, of which the great purpose is instruction, a 
simile may be praised which illustrates, though 
it does not ennoble ; in heroics, that may be ad- 
mitted which ennobles, though it does not illus- 
trate. That it may be complete it is required to 
exhibit, independently of its referrences, a pleas- 

Qq 



302 



POPE. 



ing image ; for a simile is said to be a short epi- 
sode. To this antiquity was so attentive, that 
circumstances were sometimes added, which, 
having no parallels, served only to fill the imagi- 
nation, and produced what Perrault ludicrously 
called " comparisons with a long tail." In their 
similes the greatest writers have sometimes 
failed ; the ship-race, compared with the chariot- 
race, is neither illustrated nor aggrandized ; land 
and water make all the difference : when Apol- 
lo, running after Daphne, is likened to a grey- 
hound chasing a hare, there is nothing gained ; 
the ideas of pursuit and flight are too plain to he 
made plainer ; and a god, and the daughter of a 
god, are not represented much to their advantage 
by a hare and dog. The simile of the Alps has 
no useless parts, yet affords a striking picture by 
itself; it makes the foregoing position better un- 
derstood, and enables it to take faster hold on 
the attention; it assists the apprehension, and 
elevates the fancy. 

Let me likewise dwell a little on the cele- 
brated paragraph, in which it is directed that 
" the sound should seem an echo to the sense ;" 
a precept which Pope is allowed to have ob- 
served beyond any other English poet. 

This notion of representative metre, and the 
desire of discovering frequent adaptations of the 
sound to the sense, have produced, in my opi- 
nion, many wild conceits and imaginary beau- 
ties. All that can furnish this representation 
are the sounds of the words considered singly, 
und the time in which they are pronounced. 
Every language has some words framed to ex- 
hibit the noises which they express, as thumjy, 
rattle, growl, hiss. These, however, are but few, 
and the poet cannot make them more, nor can 
they be of any use but when sound is to be men- 
tioned. The time of pronunciation was in the 
dactylic measures of the learned languages cap- 
able of considerable variety ; but that variety 
could be accommodated only to motion or dura- 
tion, and different degrees of motion were per- 
haps expressed by verses rapid or slow, without 
much attention of the writer, when the image 
had full possession of his fancy ; but our lan- 
guage having little flexibility, our verses can dif- 
fer very little in their cadence. The fancied re- 
semblances, I fear, arise sometimes merely from 
the ambiguity of words ; there is supposed to be 
some relation between a soft line and a soft 
couch, or between hard syllables and hard for- 
tune. 

Motion, however, may be in some sort exem- 
pli fied ; and yet it may be suspected that, in 
su ch resemblances, the mind often governs the 
ear, and the sounds are estimated by their mean- 
ing. One of their most successful attempts has 
been to describe the labour of Sisyphus : 



With many a weary step, and many a groan, 
Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone ; 



The huge rouud stone, resulting with a bound, 
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the 
ground. 

Who does not perceive the stone to move slowly 
upward, and roll violently back ? But set the 
same numbers to another sense : 

While many a merry tale, and many a song, 
Cheered the rough road, we wish'd the rough road 

long. 
The rough road then returning in a round, 
Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fai;y 

ground. 



We have now surely lost much of the delay, and 
much of the rapidity. 

But, to show how little the greatest master of 
numbers can fix the principles of representative 
harmony, it will be sufficient to remark that the 
poet who tells us, that 

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 
The line too labours, and the words move slow : 
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, 
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the 
main — 

when he had enjoyed for about thirty years the 
praise of Camilla's lightness of foot, he tried an- 
other experiment upon sound and time, and pro- 
duced this memorable triplet : 

Waller was smooth ; but Dryden taught to join 
The varying verse, the full resounding line, 
The long majestic march, and energy divine. 

Here are the swiftness of the rapid race, and 
the march of slow-paced majesty, exhibited by 
the same poet in the same sequence of syllables, 
except that the exact prosodist will find the line 
of swiftness by one time longer that that of tardi- 
ness. 

Beauties of this kind are commonly fancied ; 
and, when real, are technical and nugatory, not 
to be rejected, and not to be solicited. 

To the praises which have been accumulated 
on " The Rape of the Lock," by readers of 
every class, from the critic to the waiting-maid, 
it is difficult to make any addition. Of that 
which is universally allowed to be the most at- 
tractive of all ludicrous compositions, let it 
rather be now inquired from what sources the 
power of pleasing is derived. 

Dr. Warburton, who excelled in critical per- 
spicacity, has remarked, that the preternatural 
agents are very happily adapted to the purposes of 
the poem. The heathen deities can no longer gain 
attention ; we should have turned away from a 
contest between Venus and Diana. The em- 
ployment of allegorical persons always excites 
conviction of its own absurdity ; they may pro- 



POPE. 



303 



dace effects, but cannot conduct actions : when 
the phantom is put in motion, it dissolves : thus 
Discord may raise a mutiny ; but Discord can- 
not conduct a march, nor besiege a town. Pope 
brought into view a new race of beings, with 
powers and passions proportionate to their oper- 
ation. The Sylphs and Gnomes act at the 
toilet and the tea-table, what more terrific and 
more powerful phantoms perform on the stormy 
ocean or the field of battle; they give their 
proper help, and do their proper mischief. 

Pope is said, by an objector, not to have been 
the inventor of this petty nation ; a charge 
which might, with more justice, have been 
brought against the author of the " Iliad," who 
doubtless adopted the religious system of his 
country ; for what is there but the names of 
his agents, which Pope has not invented ? Has 
he not assigned them characters and operations 
never heard of before ? Has he not, at least, 
given them their first poetical existence? If 
this is not sufficient to denominate his work 
original, nothing original ever can be written. 

In this work are exhibited, in a very high 
degree, the two most engaging powers of an 
author. New things are made familiar, and 
familiar things are made new. A race of aerial 
people, never heard of before, is presented to us 
in a manner so clear and easy, that the reader 
seeks for no further information, but immedi- 
ately mingles with his new acquaintance, adopts 
their interests, and attends their pursuits ; loves 
a Sylph, and detests a Gnome. 

That familiar things are made new, every 
paragraph will prove. The subject of the poem 
is an event below the common incidents of com- 
mon life ; nothing real is introduced that is not 
seen so often as to be no longer regarded ; yet 
the whole detail of a female day is here brought 
before us, invested with so much art of decora- 
tion, that, though nothing is disguised, every 
thing is striking, and we feel all the appetite of 
curiosity for that from which we have a thou- 
sand times turned fastidiously away. 

The purpose of the poet is, as he tells us, to 
laugh at " the little unguarded follies of the fe- 
male sex." It is therefcre without justice that 
Dennis charges " The Rape of the Lock" with 
the want of a moral, and for that reason sets it 
below the " Lutrin," which exposes the pride 
and discord of the clergy. Perhaps neither 
Pope nor Boileau has made the world much 
better than he found it ; but if they had both 
succeeded, it were easy to tell who would have 
deserved most from public gratitude. The 
freaks, and humours, and spleen, and vanity, of 
women, as they embroil families in discord, and 
fill houses with disquiet, do more to obstruct 
the happiness of life in a year than the ambi- 
tion of the clergy in many centuries. It has 
been well observed, that the misery of man pro- 



ceeds not from any single crush of overwhelm- 
ing evil, but from small vexations continually 
repeated. 

It is remarked by Dennis, likewise, that the 
machinery is superfluous; that, by all the bustle 
of preternatural operation, the main event is 
neither hastened nor retarded. To this charge 
an efficacious answer is not easily made. ( The 
Sylphs cannot be said to help or to oppose ; and 
it must be allowed to imply some want of art, 
that their power has not been sufficiently inter- 
mingled with the action. Other parts may 
likewise be charged with want of connection ; 
the game at ombre might be spared ; but, if the 
lady had lost her hair while she was intent 
upon her cards, it might have been inferred, 
that those who are too fond of play will be in 
danger of neglecting more important interests. 
Those perhaps are faults ; but what are such 
faults to so much excellence ! 

The Epistle of Eloise to Abelard is one of the 
most happy productions of human wit : the 
subject is so judiciously chosen, that it would 
be difficult, in turning over the annals of the 
world, to find another which so many circum- 
stances concur to recommend. We regularly 
interest oxirselves most in the fortune of those 
who most deserve our notice. Abelard and 
Eloise were conspicuous in their days for emi- 
nence of merit. The heart naturally loves 
truth. The adventures and misfortunes of this 
illustrious pair are known from undisputed 
history. Their fate does not leave the mind in 
hopeless dejection ; for they both found quiet 
and consolation in retirement and piety. So 
new and so affecting is their story, that it 
supersedes invention ; and imagination ranges 
at full liberty without straggling into scenes 
of fable. 

The story thus skilfully adopted, has been 
diligently improved. Pope has left nothing be- 
hind him which seems more the effect of studi- 
ous perseverance and laborious revisal. Here 
is particularly observable the curiosa felicitas, a 
fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here is 
no crudeness of oense, nor asperity of language. 

The sources from which sentiments which 
have so much vigour and efficacy have been 
drawn are shown to be the mystic writers by 
the learned author of the " Essay on the Life 
and Writings of Pope ;" a book which teaches 
how the brow of Criticism may be smoothed, 
and how she may be enabled, with all her se- 
verity, to attract and to delight. 

The train of my disquisition has now con- 
ducted me to that poetical wonder, the transla- 
tion of the " Iliad," a performance which no 
age or nation can pretend to equal. To the 
Greeks translation was almost unknown ; it 
was totally unknown to the inhabitants of 
Greece. They had no recourse to the barbarians 



304 



POPE. 



for poetical beauties, but sought for every thing 
in Homer, where, indeed, there is but little 
which they might not find. 

The Italians have been very diligent transla- 
tors ; but I can hear of no version, unless per- 
haps Anguilara's Ovid may be excepted, which 
s read with eagerness. The " Iliad" of Salvini 
every reader may discover to be punctiliously 
exact ; but it seems to be the work of a linguist 
skilfully pedantic; and his countrymen, the 
proper judges of its power to please, reject it 
with disgust. 

Their predecessors, the Romans, have left 
some specimens of translations behind them, and 
that employment must ha-ve had some credit in 
which Tully and Germanicus engaged; but, 
unless we suppose, what is perhaps true, that 
the plays of Terence were versions of Menander, 
nothing translated seems ever to have risen to 
high reputation. The French, in the meridian 
hour of their learning, were very laudably in- 
dustrious to enrich their own language with the 
wisdom of the ancients ; but found themselves 
reduced, by whatever necessity, to turn the 
Greek and Roman poetry into prose. Whoever 
could read an author could translate him. From 
such rivals little can be feared. 

The chief help of Pope in this arduous under- 
taking was drawn from the versions of Dryden. 
Virgil had borrowed much of his imagery from 
Homer, and part of the debt was now paid by 
his translator. Pope searched the pages of Dry- 
den for happy combinations of heroic diction ; 
but it will not be denied that he added much to 
what he found. He cultivated our language 
with so much diligence and art, that he has left 
in his Homer a treasure of poetical elegances to 
posterity. His version may be said to have 
tuned the English tongue ; for since its appear- 
ance no writer, however deficient in other 
powers, has wanted melody. Such a series of 
lines, so elaborately corrected, and so sweetly 
modulated, took possession of the public ear ; the 
vulgar was enamoured of the poem, and the 
learned wondered at the translation. 

But, in the most general applause, discordant 
voices will always be heard. It has been object- 
ed by some, who wish to be numbered among 
the sons of learning, that Pope's version of 
Homer is not Homerioal ; that it exhibits no 
resemblance of the original and characteristic 
manneT of the Father of Poetry, as it wants his 
awful simplicity, his artless grandeur,* his im- 



* Bentley was one of these. He and Pope, soon 
after the publication of Homer, met at Dr. Mead's 
at dinner; when Pope, desirous cf his opinion of the 
translation, addressed him thus : " Dr. Bentley, I 
ordered my bookseller to send you your books ; I 
hope you received them." Bentley, who had pur- 
posely ^voided saying any thing about Homer, pre- 



affected majesty. This cannot be totally denied j 
but it must be remembered, that necessitas quod 
cogit defendit ; that may be lawfully done which 
cannot be forborne. Time and place will always 
enforce regard. In estimating this translation, 
consideration must be had of the nature of our 
language, the form of our metre, and, above all, 
of the change which two thousand years have 
made in the modes of life and the habits of 
thought. Virgil wrote in a language of the 
same general fabric with that of Homer, in 
verses of the same measure, and in an age nearer 
to Homer's time by eighteen hundred years ; yet 
he found, even then, the state of the world so 
much altered, and the demand for elegance so 
much increased, that mere nature would be en- 
dured no longer ; and perhaps, in the multitude 
of borrowed passages, very few can be shown 
which he has not embellished. 

There is a time when nations, emerging from 
barbarity, and falling into regular subordination, 
gain leisure to grow wise, and feel the shame of 
ignorance and the craving pain of unsatisfied 
curiosity. To this hunger of the mind plain 
sense is grateful ; that which fills the void re- 
moves uneasiness, and to be free from pain for a 
while is pleasure ; but repletion generates fas- 
tidiousness; a saturated intellect soon becomes 
luxurious, and knowledge finds no willing re- 
ception till it is recommended by artificial dic- 
tion. Thus it will be found, in the progress of 
learning, that in all nations the first writers are 
simple, and that every age improves in elegance. 
One refinement always makes way for another ; 
and what was expedient to Virgil was necessary 
to Pope. 

I suppose many readers of the English " Ili- 
ad," when they have been touched with some 
unexpected beauty of the lighter kind, have tried 
to enjoy it in the original, where, alas ! it was 
not to be found. Homer doubtless owes to his 
translator many O vidian graces not exactly suit- 
able to his character ; but to have added can be 
no great crime, if nothing be taksn away. Ele- 
gance is surely to be desired, if it be not gained 
at the expense of dignity. A hero would wish 
to be loved, as well as to be reverenced. 

To a thousand cavils one answer is sufficient ; 
the purpose of a writer is to be read, and the 
criticism which would destroy the power of 
pleasing must be bloAvn aside. Pope wrote for 
his own age and his own nation : he knew that 
it was necessary to colour the images and point 
the sentiments of his author ; he therefore 



tended not to understand him, and asked, ' Books! 
books ! what books V*—". My Homer," repucd Pope, 
" which you did me the honour to subscribe for."— 
" Oh," said Bentley, " ay, now I recollect— your 
translation :— it is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope ; but you 
must not call it Homer."— H. 



POPE. 



305 



made him graceful, but lost him some of his 
sublimity. 

The copious notes with which the version is 
accompanied, and by which it is recommended 
to many readers, though they were undoubtedly 
written to swell the volumes, ought not to pass 
without praise ; commentaries which attract the 
reader by the pleasure of perusal have not often 
appeared ; the notes of others are read to deal 
difficulties, those of Pope to vary entertainment. 

It has however been objected with sufficient 
reason, that there is in the commentary too 
much of unseasonable levity and affected gayety ; 
that too many appeals are made to the ladies, 
and the ease which is so carefully preserved is 
sometimes the ease of a trifler. Every art has 
its terms, and every kind of instruction its pro- 
per style ; the gravity of common critics may be 
tedious, but is less despicable than childish mer- 
riment. 

Of the " Odyssey" nothing remains to be ob- 
served ; the same general praise may be given 
to both translations, and a particular examina- 
tion of either would require a large volume. 
The notes were written by Broome, who en- 
deavoured, not unsuccessfully, to imitate his 
master. 

Of the " Dunciad" the hint is confessedly 
taken from Dryden's " Mac Flecknoe ;" but 
the plan is so enlarged and diversified as justly 
to claim the praise of an original, and affords the 
best specimen that has yet appeared of personal 
satire ludicrously pompous. 

That the design was moral, whatever the au- 
thor might tell either his readers or himself, I 
am not convinced. The first motive was the 
desire of revenging the contempt in which The- 
obald had treated his Shakspeare, and regaining 
the honour which he had lost, by crushing his 
opponent. Theobald was not of bulk enough to 
fill a poem, and therefore it was necessary to 
find other enemies with other names, at , whose 
expense he might divert the public. 

In this design there was petulance and malig- 
nity enough ; but I cannot think it very crimi- 
nal. An author places himself uncalled before 
the tribunal of criticism, and solicits fame at the 
hazard of disgrace. Dulness or deformity are 
not culpable in themselves, but may be very 
justly reproached when they pretend to the hon- 
our of wit or the influence of beauty. If bad 
writers were to pass without reprehension, 
what should restrain them ? impune diem con- 
sumpserit ingens Telephus ; and upon bad writers 
only will censure have much effect. The satire 
which brought Theobald and Moore into con- 
tempt dropped impotent from Bentley, like the 
javelin of Priam. 

All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism 
may be considered as useful when it rectifies er- 
ror and improves judgment : he that refines the 
public taste is a public benefactor. 



The beauties of this poem are well known ; 
its chief fault is the grossness of its images. 
Pope and Swift had an unnatural delight in 
ideas physically impure, such as every other 
tongue utters with unwillingness, and of which 
every ear shrinks from the mention. 

But even this fault, offensive as it is, may be 
forgiven for the excellence of other passages ; 
such as the formation and dissolution of Moore, 
the account of the traveller, the misfortune of 
the florist, and the crowded thoughts and stately 
numbers which dignify the concluding para- 
graph. 

The alterations which have been made in the 
" Dunciad," not always for the better, require 
that it should be published, with all its varia- 
tions. 

The " Essay on Man" was a work of great 
labour and long consideration, but certainly not 
the happiest of Pope's performances. The sub- 
ject is perhaps not very proper for poetry, and 
the poet was not sufficiently master of his sub- 
ject ; metaphysical morality was to him a new 
study: he was proud of his acquisitions, and, 
supposing himself master of great secrets, was in 
haste to teach what he had not learned. Thus 
he tells us, in the first epistle, that from the na- 
ture of the supreme Being may be deduced an 
order of beings such as mankind, because infinite 
excellence can do only what is best. He finds 
out that these beings must be " somewhere ;" 
and that " all the question is, whether man be 
in a wrong place." Surely if, according to the 
poet's Leibnitian reasoning, we may infer that 
man ought to be, only because he is, we may al- 
low that this place is the right place, because he 
has it. Supreme Wisdom is not less infallible 
in disposing than in creating. But what is 
meant by somewhere and place, and wrong place, 
it had been vain to ask Pope, who probably had 
never asked himself. 

Having exalted himself into the chair of wis- 
dom, he tells us much that every man knows, 
and much that he does not know himself; that 
we see but little, and that the order of the uni- 
verse is beyond our comprehension ; an opinion 
not very uncommon ; and that there is a chain 
of subordinate beings " from infinite to no- 
thing," of which himself and his readers are 
equally ignorant. But he gives us one comfort, 
which without his help he supposes unattain- 
able, in the position, " that though we are fools, 
yet God is wise." 

The Essay affords an egregious instance of 
the predominance of genius, the dazzling splen- 
dour of imagery, and the seductive powers of 
eloquence. Never were penury of knowledge 
and vulgarity of sentiment so happily disguised. 
The reader feels his mind full, though he learns 
nothing ; and, when he meets it in its new ar- 
ray, no longer knows the talk of his mother and 
his nurse. When these wonder-working sounds 



306 



POPE. 



8rak into sense, and the doctrine of the Essay, 
disrobed of its ornaments, is left to the powers 
of its naked excellence, what shall we discover ? 
—That we are, in comparison with our Creator, 
very weak and ignorant ; that we do not up- 
hold the chain of existence ; and that we could 
not make one another with more skill than we 
are made. We may learn yet more ; that the 
arts of human life were copied from the instinc- 
tive operations of other animals ; that, if the 
world be made for man, it may be said that man 
was made for geese. To those profound princi- 
ples of natural knowledge are added some moral 
instructions equally new ; that self-interest, 
well understood, will produce social concord ; 
that men are mutual gainers by mutual bene- 
fits ; that evil is sometimes balanced by good ; 
that human advantages are unstable and falla- 
cious, of uncertain duration and doubtful effect ; 
that our true honour is, not to have a great 
part, but to act it well; that virtue only is 
our own ; and that happiness is always in our 
power. 

Surely a man of no very comprehensive search 
may venture to say that he has heard all this be- 
fore; but it was never till now recommended 
by such a blaze of embellishments, or such 
sweetness of melody. The vigorous contraction 
of some thoughts, the luxuriant amplification of 
others, the incidental illustrations, and some- 
times the dignity, sometimes the softness, of 
the verses, enchain philosophy, suspend cri- 
ticism, and oppress judgment by overpowering 
pleasure. 

This is true of many paragraphs ; yet, if I 
had undertaken to exemplify Pope's felicity of 
composition before a rigid critic, I should not 
select the " Essay on Man;" for it contains 
more lines unsuccessfully laboured, more harsh- 
ness of diction, more thoughts imperfectly ex- 
pressed, more levity without elegance, and more 
heaviness without strength, than will easily be 
found in all his other works. 

The Characters of Men and Women are the 
product of diligent speculation upon human 
life ; much labour has been bestowed upon them, 
and Pope very seldom laboured in vain. That 
his excellence may be properly estimated, I re- 
commend a comparison of his Characters of Wo- 
men with Boileau's satire ; it will then be seen 
with how much more perspicacity female nature 
is investigated and female excellence selected ; 
and he surely is no mean writer to whom Boi- 
leau should be found inferior. The Characters 
of Men, however, are written with more, if not 
with deeper thought, and exhibit many passages 
exquisitely beautiful. The " Gem and the 
Flower" will not easily be equalled. In the 
women's part are some defects; the character 
of Atcssa is not so neatly finished as that of 
Clodio ; and some of the female characters may 
be found perhaps more frequently among 



men; what is said of Philomede was true of 
Prior. 

In the Epistles to Lord Bathurst and Lord 
Burlington, Dr. Warburton has endeavoured to 
find a train of thought which was never in the 
writer's head, and to support his hypothesis, 
has printed that first which was published last. 
In one, the most valuable passage is perhaps the 
Elegy on " Good Sense;" and the other, the 
" End of the Duke of Buckingham." 

The epistle to Arbuthnot, now arbitrarily 
called " The Prologue to the Satires," is a per- 
formance consisting, as it seems, of many frag- 
ments wrought into one design, which by this 
union of scattered beauties contains more strik- 
ing paragraphs than could probably have been 
brought together into an occasional work. As 
there is no stronger motive to exertion than self- 
defence, no part has more elegance, spirit, or 
dignity, than the poet's vindication of his own 
character. The meanest passage is the satire 
upon Sporus. 

Of the two poems which derived their names 
from the year, and which are called " The 
Epilogue to the Satires," it was very justly re- 
marked by Savage, that the second was in the 
whole more strongly conceived, and more 
equally supported, but that it had no single 
passage equal to the contention in the first for 
the dignity of vice and the celebration of the 
triumph of corruption. 

The imitations of Horace seem to have been 
written as relaxations of his genius. This em- 
ployment became his favourite by its facility; 
the plan was ready to his hand, and nothing 
was required but to accommodate as he could 
the sentiments of an old author to recent facts 
or familiar images ; but what is easy is seldom 
excellent : such imitations cannot give pleasure 
to common readers : the man of learning may 
be sometimes surprised and delighted by an un- 
expected parallel ; but the comparison requires 
knowledge of the original, which will likewise 
often detect strained applications. Between 
Roman images and English manners, there 
will be an irreconcileable dissimilitude, and the 
work will be generally uncouth and party-co- 
loured, neither original nor translated, neither 
ancient nor modern. * 



* In one of these poems is a couplet, to which 
belongs a story that I once heard the Reverend Dr 
Ridley relate : 

'* Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage ; 
Harsh words, or hanging, if your judge be ****." 

Sir Francis Page, a judge well known in his time, 
conceiving that his name was meant to fill up the 
blank, sent his clerk to Mr. Pope, to complain of the 
insult. Pope told the young man that the blank 
might be supplied by many monosyllables ether 



POPE. 



307 



Pope had, in proportions very nicely adjusted 
to each other, all the qualities that constitute 
genius. He had invention, by which new trains 
of events are formed, and new scenes of imagery 
displayed, as in the " Rape of the Lock;" and 
by which extrinsic and adventitious embellish- 
ments and illustrations are connected with a 
known subject, as in the " Essay on Criticism," 
He had imagination, which strongly impresses 
on the writer's mind, and enables him to convey 
to the reader, the various forms of nature, inci- 
dents of life, and energies of passion, as in his 
" Eloisa," " "Windsor Forest," and the "Ethic 
Epistles." He had judgment, which selects 
from life or nature what the present purpose 
requires, and, by separating the essence of things 
from its concomitants, often makes the repre- 
sentation more powerful than the reality ; and 
he had colours of language always before him, 
ready to decorate his matter with every grace of 
elegant expression, as when he accommodates 
his diction to the wonderful multiplicity of 
Homer's sentiments and descriptions. 

Poetical expression includes sound as well as 
meaning: "Music," says Dryden, "is inar- 
ticulate poetry;" among the excellences of 
Pope, therefore, must be mentioned the melody 
of his metre. By perusing the works of Dryden 
he discovered the most perfect fabric of English 
verse, and habituated himself to that only which 
he found the best ; in consequence of which re- 
straint, his poetry has been censured as too uni- 
formly musical, and as glutting the ear with 
unvaried sweetness. I suspect this objection to 
be the cant of those who judge by principles 
rather than perception ; and who would even 
themselves have less pleasure in his works, if he 
had tried to relieve attention by studied discords, 
or affected to break his lines and vary his pauses. 

But though he was thus careful of his versifi- 
cation, he did not oppress his powers with 
superfluous rigour. He seems to have thought 
with Boileau, that the practice of writing might 
be refined till the difficulty should overbalance 
the advantage. The construction of his language 
is not always strictly grammatical : with those 
rhymes which prescription had conjoined, he 
contented himself, without regard to Swift's re- 
monstrances, though there was no striking con- 
sonance ; nor was he very careful to vary his 
terminations, or to refuse admission, at a small 
distance, to the same rhymes. 

To Swift's edict for the exclusion of Alexan- 



than the judge's name : — " But, Sir," said the clerk, 
" the judge says that no other word will make sense 
of the passage." " So then it seems," says Pope, 
'* your master is not only a judge, but a poet: as that 
is the case, the odds are against me. Give my re- 
spects to the judge, and tell him, I will not contend 
with one that has the advantage of me, and he may 
fill up the blank as he pleases." — H. 



drines and triplets he paid little regard ; he ad- 
mitted them, but, in the opinion of Fenton, too 
rarely; he uses them more liberally in his trans- 
lation than his poems. 

He has a few double rhymes ; and always, I 
think, unsuccessfully, except once in the " Rape 
of the Lock." 

Expletives he very early ejected from his 
verses ; but he now and then admits an epithet 
rather commodious than important. Each of 
the six first lines of the " Iliad" might lose two 
syllables with very little diminution of the mean- 
ing ; and sometimes, after all his art and labour, 
one verse seems to be made for the sake of an- 
other. In his latter productions the diction is 
sometimes vitiated by French idioms, with 
which Bolingbroke had perhaps infected him. 

I have been told that the couplet by which he 
declared his own ear to be most gratified was 
this : 

Lo, where Maeotis sleeps, and hardly flows 
The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows. 

But the reason of this preference I cannot dis- 
cover. 

It is remarked by Watts, that there is scarcely 
a happy combination of words, or a phrase po- 
etically elegant in the English language, which 
Pope has not inserted into his version of Homer. 
How he obtained possession of so many beauties 
of speech, it were desirable to know. That he 
gleaned from authors, obscure as well as emi- 
nent, what he thought brilliant or useful, and 
preserved it all in a regular collection, is not 
unlikely. When, in his last years, Hall's Sa- 
tires were shown him, he wished that he had 
seen them sooner. 

New sentiments and new images others may 
produce ; but to attempt any further improve- 
ment of versification will be dangerous. Art 
and diligence have now done their best, and 
what shall be added will be the effort of tedious 
toil and needless curiosity. 

After all this, it is surely superfluous to an- 
swer the question that has once been asked, 
Whether Pope was a poet ? otherwise than by 
asking, in return, If Pope be not a poet, where 
is poetry to be found ? To circumscribe poetry 
by a definition will only show the narrowness 
of the definer, though a definition which shall 
exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us 
look round upon the present time, and back 
upon the past ; let us inquire to whom the voice 
of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry ; 
let their productions be examined, and their 
claims stated, and the pretensions of Pope will 
be no more disputed. Had he given the world 
only his version, the name of poet must have 
been allowed him ; if the writer of the " Iliad" 
were to class his successors, he would assign a 
very high place to his translator, without re- 
quiring any othei evidence of genius. 



308 



POPE. 



The following letter, of which the original is 
in the hands of Lord Hardwicke, was commu- 
nicated to me by the kindness of Mr. Jodrell. 

" To Mr. Bridges, at the Bishop of London's, 
at Fulham. 
" Sir, 

" The favour of your letter, with your re- 
mark, can never be enough acknowledged; and 
the speed with which you discharged so trouble- 
some a task doubles the obligation. 

" I must own, you have pleased me very 
much by commendations so ill bestowed upon 
me; but, I assure you, much more by the 
frankness of your censure, which I ought to 
take the more kindly of the two, as it is more 
advantageous to a scribbler to be improved in 
his judgment than to be soothed in his vanity. 
The greater part of those deviations from the 
Greek which you have observed, I was led into 
by Chapman and Hobbes ; who are, it seems, 
as much celebrated for their knowledge of the 
original, as they are decried for the badness of 
their translations. Chapman pretends to have 
restored the genuine sense of the author, from 
the mistakes of all former explainers, in several 
hundred places ; and the Cambridge editors of 
the large Homer, in Greek and Latin, attri- 
buted so much to Hobbes, that they confess 
they have corrected the old Latin interpreta- 
tion very often by his version. For my part, I 
generally took the author's meaning to be as 
you have explained it ; yet their authority, 
joined to the knowledge of my own imperfect- 
ness in the language, overruled me. However, 
Sir, you may be confident I think you in the 
right, because you happen to be of my opinion ; 
for men (let them say what they will) never 
approve any other's sense, but as it squares 
with their own. But you have made me much 
more proud of, and positive in my judgment, 
since it is strengthened by yours. I think your 
criticisms which regard the expression very 
just, and shall make my profit of them ; to give 
you some proof that I am in earnest, I will 
alter three verses on your bare objection, though 
I have Mr. Dryden's example for each of them. 
And this, I hope, you will account no small 
piece of obedience from one who values the au- 
thority of one true poet above that of twenty 
critics or commentators. But, though I speak 
thus of commentators, I will continue to read 
carefully all I can procure, to make up, that 
way, for my own want of critical understand- 
ing in the original beauties of Homer. Though 
the greatest of them are certainly those of in- 
vention and design, which are not at all con- 
fined to the language ; for the distinguishing 
excellences of Homer are (by the consent of the 
best critics of all nations) first in the manners 
(which include all the speeches, as being no 
other than the representations of each person's 



manners by his words;) and then in that rap- 
ture and fire which carries you away with him, 
with that wonderful force, that no man who 
has a true poetical spirit is master of himself 
while he reads him. Homer makes you in- 
terested and concerned before you are aware, all 
at once, whereas Virgil does it by soft degrees. 
This, I believe, is what a translator of Homer 
ought principally to imitate ; and it is very 
hard for any translator to come up to it, be- 
cause the chief reason why all translations fall 
short of their originals is, that the very con- 
straint they are obliged to renders them heavy 
and dispirited. 

" The great beauty of Homer's language, as 
I take it, consists in that noble simplicity which 
runs through all his works ; (and yet his dic- 
tion, contrary to what one would imagine con- 
sistent with simplicity, is at the same time very 
copious.) I don't know how 1 have run into 
this pedantry in a letter, but I find I haA r e said 
too much, as well as spoken too inconsiderately : 
what farther thoughts I have upon this subject 
I shall be glad to communicate to you (for my 
owa improvement) when we meet ; which is a 
happiness I very earnestly desire, as I do like- 
wise some opportunity of proving how much I 
think myself obliged to your friendship, and 
how truly I am, Sir { 

" Your most faithful, humble servant, 

" A. Pope." 



The criticism upon Pope's Epitaphs, which 
was printed in " The Universal Visitor," is 
placed here, being too minute aud particular to 
be inserted in the Life. 

Every art is best taught by example. No- 
thing contributes more to the cultivation of 
propriety than remarks on the works of those 
who have most excelled. I shall therefore en- 
deavour, at this visit, to entertain the young stu- 
dents in poetry with an examination of Pope's 
Epitaphs. 

To define an epitaph is useless; every one 
knows that it is an inscription on a tomb. An 
epitaph, therefore, implies no particular charac- 
ter of writing, but may be composed in verse 
or prose. It is indeed commonly panegyrical ; 
because we are seldom distinguished with a 
stone but by our friends ; but it has no rule 
to restrain or modify it, except this, that it 
ought not to be longer than common beholders 
may be expected to have leisure and patience to 
peruse. 

I. 

On Charles Earl of Dorset, in the Church of 

Wy thy ham in Sussex: 

Dorset, the grace of courts, the muse's pride, 
Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died — ■ 



POPE. 



309 



The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great ; 

Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state ; 

Yet soft in nature, though severe his lay, 

His anger moral, and his wisdom gay. 

Blest satirist ! who touch'd the means so true, 

As show'd, Vice had his hate and pity too. 

Blest courtier! who could king and country please, 

Yet sacred kept his friendships and his ease. 

Blest peer ! his great forefather's every grace 

Reflecting, and reflected on his race ; 

Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine, 

And patriots still, or poets, deck the line. 

The first distich of this epitaph contains a 
kind of information which few would want, 
that the man for whom the tomb was erected 
died. There are indeed some qualities worthy 
of praise ascribed to the dead, but none that were 
likely to exempt him from the lot of man, or in- 
cline us much to wonder that he should die. 
What is meant by "judge of nature," is not 
easy to say. Nature is not the object of human 
judgment; for it is vain to judge where we can- 
not alter. If by nature is meant what is com- 
monly ealled nature by the critics, a just repre- 
sentation of things really existing and actions 
really performed, nature cannot be properly op- 
posed to art ; nature being, in this sense, only 
the best effect of art. 

The scourge of pride — 

Of this couplet, the second line is not, what is 
intended, an illustration of the former. Pride 
in the great is indeed well enough connected 
with knaves in state, though knaves is a word 
rather too ludicrous and light; but the mention 
of sanctified pride will not lead the thoughts to 
fops in learning, but rather to some species of 
tyranny or oppression, something more gloomy 
and more formidable than foppery. 

Yet soft his nature — 

This is a high compliment, but was not first 
bestowed on Dorset by Pope. The next verse 
is extremely beautiful. 

Blest satirist ! — 

In this distich is another line of which Pope 
was not the author. I do not mean to blame 
these imitations with much harshness ; in long 
performances they are scarcely to be avoided, 
and in shorter they may be indulged, because 
the train of the composition may naturally in- 
volve them, or the scantiness of the subject allow 
little choice. However, what is borrowed is 
not to be enjoyed as our own ; and it is the busi- 
ness of critical justice to give every bird of the 
muses his proper feather. 

Blest courtier! 



Whether a courtier can properly be commend- 
ed for keeping his ease sacred, may perhaps be 
disputable. To please king and country, with- 
out sacrificing friendship to any change of times> 
was a very uucommon instance of prudence 01 
felicity, and deserved to be kept separate from 
so poor a commendation as care of his ease. I 
wish our poets would attend a little more accur- 
ately to the use of the word sacred, which sure- 
ly should never be applied in a serious composi- 
tion but where some reference may be made to 
a higher Being, or where some duty is exacted 
or implied. A man may keep his friendship 
sacred, because promises of friendship are very 
awful ties; but methinks he cannot, but in a 
burlesque sense, be said to keep his ease sacred. 

Blest peer ! 

The blessing ascribed to the peer has no con- 
nection with his peerage ; they might happen to 
any other man whose ancestors were remember- 
ed, or whose posterity are likely to be regarded. 

I know not whether this epitaph be worthy 
either of the writer or the man entombed. 



II. 



On Sir William Trumbull, one of the principal 
Secretaries of State to King William III. ivho, 
having resigned his place, died in his retirement 
at Easthamstead in Berkshire, 1716. 

A pleasing form ; a firm, yet cautious mind ; 
Sincere, though prudent, constant, yet resign'd ; 
Honour unchanged, a principle profest, 
Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest ; 
An honest courtier, yet a patriot too ; 
Just to his prince, and to his country true ; 
FilPd with the sense of age, the fire of youth, 
A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth; 
A generous faith, from superstition free; 
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny ; 
Such this man was ; who, now from earth removed, 
At length enjoys that liberty he loved. 

In this epitaph, as in many others, there ap- 
pears, at the first view, a fault which I think 
scarcely any beauty can compensate. The name 
is omitted. The end of an epitaph is to convey 
some account of the dead ; and to what purpose 
is any thing told of him whose name is conceal- 
ed? An epitaph, and a history of a nameless 
hero, are equally absurd, since the virtues and 
qualities so recounted in either are scattered at 
the mercy of fortune to be appropriated by guess. 
The name, it is true, may be read upon the 
stone ; but what obligation has it to the poet, 
whose verses wander over the earth and leave 
their subject behind them, and who is forced, 
like an unskilful painter, to make his purpose 
known by adventitious help? 

This epitaph is wholly without elevation, and 
llr 



310 



POPE. 



contains nothing striking or particular ; but the 
poet is not to he Warned for the defects of his 
subject. He said, perhaps, the best that could 
be said. There are, however, some defects 
which were not made necessary by the charac- 
ter in which he was employed. There is no 
opposition between an honest courtier and a 
patriot ; for, an honest courtier cannot but be a 
patriot. 

It was unsuitable to the nicety required in 
short compositions to close his verse with the 
word too: every rhyme should be a word of 
emphasis ; nor can this rule be safely neglected, 
except where the length of the poem makes 
slight inaccuracies excusable, or allows room 
for beauties sufficient to overpower the effects 
of petty faults. 

At the beginning of the seventh line the 
word filled is weak and prosaic, having no par- 
ticular adaptation to any of the words that 
follow it. 

The thought in the last line is impertinent, 
having no connection with the foregoing char- 
acter, nor with the condition of the man de- 
scribed. Had the epitaph been written on the 
poor consph'ator* who died lately in prison af- 
ter a confinement of more than forty years, 
without any crime proved against him, the sen- 
timent had been just and pathetical ; but why 
should Trumbull be congratulated upon his li- 
berty, who had never known restraint ? 



III. 



On the Hon, Simon Harcourt, only Son of the 
Lord Chancellor Harcourt, at the Church of 
Stanton- Harcourt in Oxfordshire, 1720. 

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near ; 
Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear : 
Who ne'er knew joy. but friendship might divide, 
Or gave his father grief but when he died. 

How yain is reason ! eloquence how weak ! 
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak. 
Oh ! let thy once-loved friend inscribe thy stone, 
And with a father's sorrows mix his own ! 

This epitaph is principally remarkable for the 
artful introduction of the name, which is in- 
serted with a peculiar felicity, to which chance 
must concur with genius, which no man can 
hope to attain twice, and which cannot be copied 
but with servile imitation. 

I cannot but wish that of this inscription the 
two last lines had been omitted, as they take 
away from the energy what they do not add to 
the sense. 



IV. 

On James Craggs, Esq. 
Jn Westminster Abbey. 

JACOBVS CRAGOS, 

REGI MAGNjE britannite a secretis 

ETCONSIEIIS SANCTIORIBVS 

PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPYLI AMOR ET DELICIjEC 

VIXIT TITVLIS ET 1NVIDIA MAJOR 

ANNOS HEV PAVCOS, XXXV. 

OB. FEB.. XVI. MDCCXX. 

Statesman, yet friend to truth ! of soul sincere, 

In action faithful, and in honour clear ! 

Who broke no promise, served no private end, 

Who gain'dno title, and who lost no friend! 

Ennobled by himself, by all approved,. 

Praised, wept, and honour'd by the Muse he loved I 

The lines on Craggs were not originally in- 
tended for an epitaph; and therefore some 
faults are to be imputed to the violence with 
which they are torn from the poem that first 
contained them. We may, however, observe 
some defects. There is a redundancy of words 
in the first couplet : it is superfluous to tell of 
him who was sincere, true, and faithful, that he 
was in honour clear. 

There seems to be an opposition intended in 
the fourth line, which is not very obvious : 
where is the relation between the two posi- 
tions, that he gained no title, and lost no friend ? 

It may be proper here to remark the absurdity 
of joining in the same inscription Latin and 
English, or verse and prose. If either lan- 
guage be preferable to the other, let that only be 
used ; for no reason can be given Why part of 
the information should be given in one tongue, 
and part in another, on a tomb more than in 
any other place, or any other occasion ; and to 
tell all that can be conveniently told in verse, 
and then to call in the help of prose, has always 
the appearance of a very artless expedient, or of 
an attempt unaccomplished. Such an epitaph 
resembles the conversation of a foreigner, who 
tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys 
part by signs. 



Intended for Mr. Rowe. 
In Westminster Abbey. * 

Thy relics, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, 
And, sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust; 
Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, 
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes 



* This was altered much for the better as it now 
# Major Bernardi, who died in Newgate, Sept. 20, I stands on the monument in the Abbey, erected to 
17'SQ. See Gent. Mag. vol. 1. p,125.~ N. | Rowe and his daughter.— War b. 



POPE. 



311 



Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest ! 
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest I 
One grateful woman to thy fame supplies 
What a whole thankless land to his denies. 

Of this inscription the chief fault is, that it be- 
ongs less to Rowe, for whom it is written, 
than to Dryden, who was buried near him ; 
and indeed gives very little information concern- 
ing either. 

To wish Peace to tfiy shade is too mythological 
to be admitted into a Christian temple : the an- 
cient worship has infected almost all our other 
compositions, and might therefore be contented 
to spare our epitaphs. Let fiction at least cease 
with life, and let us be serious over the grave. 

VI. 

On Mrs. Corbet, 
Who died of a Cancer in her Breast.* 

Here rests a woman, good without pretence, 
Blest with plain reason and with sober sense ; 
No conquest she, but o'er herself, desired : 
No arts essay'd, but not to be admired. 
Passion and pride were to her soul unknown, 
Convinced that virtue only is our own. 
So unaffected, so composed a mind, 
So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined, 
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried ; 
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died. 

I have always considered this as the most val- 
uable of all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is 
a character not discriminated by any shining or 
eminent peculiarities; yet that which really 
makes, though not the splendour, the felicity of 
life, and that which every wise man will choose 
for his final and lasting companion in the lan- 
gour of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he 
departs weary and disgusted from the ostenta- 
tious, the volatile, and the vain. Of such a 
character, which the dull overlook, and the gay 
despise, it was fit that the value should be made 
known, and the dignity established. Domestic 
virtue, as it is exerted without great occasions, 
or conspicuous consequences, in an even unnoted 
tenor, required the genius of Pope to display it 
in such a manner as might atti'act regard, and 
enforce reverence. Who can forbear to lament 
that this amiable woman has no name in the 
verses ? 

If the particular lines of this inscription be 
examined, it will appear less faulty than the 
rest. There is scarcely one line taken from 
common-places, unless it be that in which only 
virtue is said to be our own. I once heard a lady 
of great beauty and elegance object to the fourth 
line, that it contained an unnatural and incredi- 
ble panegyric. Of this let the ladies judge. 

* In the north aisle of the parish church of St. 
Margaret, Westminster. — H. 



VII. 

On the Monument of the Hon. Robert Dig by, 

and of his Sister Mary, erected by their Father^ 
the Lord Digbv, in the Church of Sherborne in 
Dorsetshire, 1727. 

Go ! fair example of untainted youth, 
Of modest wisdom and pacific truth : 
Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate, 
Good without noise, without pretension great: 
Just of thy word, in every thought sincere, 
Who knew no wish but what the world might hear : 
Of softest manners, unaffected mind, 
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind: 
Go, live ! for heaven's eternal year is thine, 
Go, and exalt thy moral to divine. 

And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom, 
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb ; 
Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore, 
Not parted long, and now to part no more ! 
Go, then, where only bliss sincere is known ! 
Go, where to love and to enjoy are one ! 

Yet take these tears, Mortality's relief, 
And, till we share your joys, forgive our grief; 
These little rites, a stone, a verse receive, 
'Tis all a father, all a friend can give ! 

This epitaph contains of the brother only a 
general indiscriminate character, and of the sis- 
ter tells nothing but that she died. The diffi- 
culty in writing epitaphs is to give a particular 
and appropriate praise. This, however, is not 
always to be performed, whatever be the dili- 
gence or ability of the writer ; for the greater 
part of mankind have no character at all, have 
little that distinguishes them from others equals 
ly good or bad, and therefore nothing can be 
said of them which may not be applied with 
equal propriety to a thousand more. It is in- 
deed no great panegyric, that there is inclosed 
in this tomb one who was born in one year and 
died in another ; yet many useful and amiable 
lives have been spent which yet leave little ma- 
terials for any other memorial. These are 
however not the proper subjects of poetry ; and 
whenever friendship, or any other motive, 
obliges a poet to write on such subjects, he must 
be forgiven if he sometimes wanders in general- 
ities, and utters the same praises over different 
tombs. 

The scantiness of human praises can scarcely 
be made more apparent, than by remarking how 
often Pope has, in the few epitaphs which he 
composed, found it necessary to borrow from 
himself. The fourteen epitaphs which he has 
written, comprise about a hundred and forty 
lines, in which there are more repetitions than 
will easily be found in all the rest of his works. 
In the eight lines which make the character of 
Digby, there is scarce any thought, or word, 
which may not be found in the other epitaphs. 

The ninth line, which is far the strongest and 
most elegant, is borrowed from Dryden, Tha 



312 



POPE. 



conclusion is the same with that on Harcourt, 
but is here more elegant and better connected. 

VIII. 

On Sir Godfrey Kneller. 
In Westminster- Abbey, 1723. 

Kneller, by Heaven, and not a master taught, 
Whose art was nature and whose pictures thought, 
Now for two ages, having snatch'd from fate 
Whate'er was beauteous or whate'er was great, 
Lies crown'd with prince's honours, poet's lays, 
Due to his merit and brave thirst of praise. 

Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie 
Her works ; and dying, fears herself may die. 

Of this epitaph the first couplet is good, the 
second not bad, the third is deformed with a 
broken metaphor, the word crowned not being 
applicable to the honours or the lays; and the 
fourth is not only borrowed from the epitaph on 
Raphael, but of a very harsh construction. 

IX. 

On General Henry Withers. 

In Westminster- Abbey, 1729, 

Here, Withers, rest ! thou bravest, gentlest mind ! 
Thy country's friend, but more of human kind. 
O ! born to arms J O I worth in youth approved ! 
O ! soft humanity in age beloved I 
For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear, 
And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere. 

Withers, adieu ! yet not with thee remove 
Thy martial spirit or thy social love ! 
Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage, 
Still leave some ancient virtues to our age ; 
Nor let us say (those English glories gone) 
The last true Briton lies beneath this stone. 



The epitaph on Withers affords another in- 
stance of common-places, though somewhat di- 
versified by mingled qualities and the peculiarity 
of a profession. 

The second couplet is abrupt, general, and 
unpleasing ; exclamation seldom succeeds in our 
language ; and, I think, it may be observed that 
the particle O ! used at the beginning of the 
sentence always offends. 

The third couplet is more happy ; the value 
expressed for him, by different sorts of men, 
raises him to esteem : there is yet something of 
the common cant of superficial satirists, who 
suppose that the insincerity of the courtier de- 
stroys all his sensations, and that he is equally a 
dissembler to the living and the dead. 

At the third couplet I should wish the epi- 
taph to close, but that I should be unwilling to 
lose the two next lines, which yet are dearly 
bought if they cannot be retained without the 
four that follow them. 



X. 

On Mr. Elijah Fenton. 
At Easthamstead in Berkshire, 1780. 

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can, 
May truly say, Here lies an honest man : 
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate, 
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and 

great : 
Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, 
Content with science in the vale of peace. 
Calmly he look'd on either life, and here 
Saw nothiog to regret, or there to fear; 
From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied, 
Thank'd Heaven that he lived, and that he died. 

The first couplet of this epitaph is borrowed 
from Crashaw. The four next lines contain a 
species of praise peculiar, original, and just. 
Here, therefore, the inscription should have 
ended, the latter part containing nothing but 
what is common to every man who is wise and 
good. The character of Fenton was so amiable, 
that I cannot forbear to wish for some poet or 
biographer to display it more fully for the ad- 
vantage of posterity. If he did not stand in the 
first rank of genius, he may claim a place in the 
second; and, whatever criticism may object to 
his writings, censure could find very little to 
blame in his life. 

XI. 

On Mr. Gay. 

In Westminster- Abbey, 1732. 

Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; 
In wit, a man ; simplicity, a child ; 
With native humour tempering virtuous rage, 
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age : 
Above temptation in a low estate, 
And uncorrupted, e'en among the great ; 
A safe companion and an easy friend, 
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end, 
These are thy honours ! not that here thy bust 
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust ; 
But that the worthy and the good shall say, 
Striking their pensive bosoms — Here lies Gay. 

As Gay was the favourite of our Author, this 
epitaph was probably written with an uncom- 
mon degree of attention ; yet it is not more suc- 
cessfully executed than the rest, for it will not 
always happen that the success of a poet is pro- 
portionate to his labour. The same observation 
may be extended to all works of imagination, 
which are often influenced by causes wholly out 
of the performer's power, by hints of which he 
perceives not the origin, by sudden elevations 
of mind which he cannot produce himself, and 
which sometimes rise when he expects them 
least. 

The two parts of the first line are only echoes 
of each other j gentle manners and mild ajfee* 



POPE. 



313 



tions, if they mean any thing, must mean the 
same. 

That Gay was a man in wit is a very frigid 
commendation ; to have the wit of a man is not 
much for a poet. The wit of man,* and the 
simplicity of a child, make a poor and vulgar con- 
trast, and raise no ideas of excellence either in- 
tellectual or moral. 

In the next couplet rage is less properly in- 
troduced after the mention of mildness and gen- 
tleness, which are made the constituents of his 
character ; for a man so mild and gentle to tem~ 
per his rage was not difficult. 

The next line is inharmonious in it3 sound 
and mean in its conception ; the opposition is 
obvious, and the word lash, used absolutely, 
and without any modification, is gross and 
improper. 

To he above temptation in poverty, and free 
from corruption among the great, is indeed such 
a peculiarity as deserved notice. But to he a 
safe companion is a praise merely negative, aris- 
ing not from possession of virtue, hut the ab- 
sence of vice, and that one of the most odious. 

As little can he added to his character by as- 
serting that he was lamented in his end. Every 
man that dies is, at least by the writer of his 
epitaph, supposed to be lamented; and there- 
fore this general lamentation does no honour 
to Gay. 

The first eight lines have no grammar ; the 
adjectives are without any substantive, and the 
epithets without a subject. 

The thought in the last line, that Gay is bu- 
ried in the bosoms of the worthy and the good, 
who are distinguished only to lengthen the 
line, is so dark that few understand it ; and so 
harsh, when it is explained, that still fewer 
approve. 

XII. 

Intended for Sir Isaac Newton. 
In Westminster- Abbey. 

ISAACUS NEWTONIUS: 

Quem Immortalem 

Testantur, Tempus, Natura, Coetum, 

Mortalem 

Hoc marmor fatetur. 

Nature and Nature's laws, lay hid in night, 

God said, Let Newton be ! And all was light. 

Of this epitaph, short as it is, the faults seem 
not to he very few. Why part should be La- 
tin, and part English, it is not easy to discover. 



Her wit was more than man, her innocence 
a child." 

Dryden on Mrs. Killigrew. — C. 



In the Latin the opposition of Immortalis and 
Mortalis is a mere sound, or a mere quibble ; he 
is not immortal in any sense contrary to that in 
which he is mortal. 

In the verses the thought is obvious, and the 
words night and light are too nearly allied. 

XIII. 

On Edmund Duke of Buckingham, who died 
in the 19th Year of his Age, 1735. 

If modest youth with cool reflection crown'd, 
And every opening virtue blooming round, 
Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, 
Or add one patriot to a sinking state ; 
This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, 
Or sadly told how many hopes lie here ! 
The living -virtue now had shone approved, 
The senate heard him, and his country loved. 
Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame, 
Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham : 
In whom a race, for courage famed and art, 
Ends in the milder merit of the heart : 
And, chiefs or sages long to Britain given, 
Pays the last tribute of a saint to Heaven. 

This epitaph Mr. Warhurton prefers to the 
rest ; but I know not for what reason. To 
crown with reflection is surely a mode of speech 
approaching to nonsense. Opening virtues bloom- 
ing round is something like tautology ; the six 
following lines are poor and prosaic. Art is 
another couplet used for arts, that a rhyme may 
be had to heart. The six last lines are the best, 
but not excellent. 

The rest of his sepulchral performances 
hardly deserve the notice of criticism. The 
contemptible " Dialogue" between He and 
She should have been suppressed for the au- 
thor's sake. 

In his last epitaph on himself, in which he 
attempts to be jocular upon one of the few things 
that make wise men serious, he confounds the 
living man with the dead : 

Under this stone, or under this sill, 
Or under this turf, &c. 

When a man is once buried, the question, un- 
der what he is buried, is easily decided. He 
forgot that, though he wrote the epitaph in a 
state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over 
him till his grave was made. Such is the folly 
of wit when it is ill employed. 

The world has but little new; even this 
wretchedness seems to have been borrowed from 
the following tuneless lines : 

Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa 
Sub hoc marmore, vel sub hachumo,seu 
Sub quicquid voluit benignus haeres, 
Sive hserede benignior comes,, seu 
Opportunius incidens Viator : 



314 



PITT. 



Nam scire haud potuit futura, sed nee 
Tanti erat vacuum sibi cadaver 
Ut urnam cuperet parare vivens, 
Vivens ista tamen sibi paravit. 
Quae inscribi voluit suo sepulchro 



Olim siquod haberet is sepulchrum. 

Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that 
his trifle would have ever had such an illustrious 
imitator. 



PITT. 



Christopher Pitt, of whom, whatever I shall 
relate, more than has been already published, I 
owe to the kind communication of Dr. Warton, 
was born in 1699, at Blandford, the son of a 
physician much esteemed. 

He was, in 1714, received as a scholar into 
"Winchester College, where he was distinguished 
by exercises of uncommon elegance, and, at his 
removal to New College, in 1719, presented to 
the electors, as the product of his private and 
voluntary studies, a Gomplete version of Lucan's 
poem, which he did not then know to have been 
translated by Rowe. 

This is an instance of early diligence, which 
well deserves to be recorded. The suppression 
of such a work, recommended by such uncom- 
mon circumstances, is to be regretted. It is in- 
deed culpable to load libraries with superfluous 
books; but incitements to early excellence are 
never superfluous, and from this example the 
danger is not great of many imitations. 

When he had resided at his college three years, 
he was presented to the rectory of Pimpern, in 
Dorsetshire (1722), by his relation, Mr. Pitt, of 
Stratfield Say, in Hampshire ; and, resigning 
his fellowship, continued at Oxford two years 
longer, till he became master of arts (1724). 

He probably about this time translated Vida's 
" Art of Poetry," which Tristram's splendid 
edition had then made popular. In this trans- 
lation he distinguished himself, both by its gen- 
eral elegance, and by the skilful adaptation of 
his numbers to the images expressed ; a beauty 
which Vida has with great ardour enforced and 
exemplified. 

He then retired to his living, a place very 
pleasing by its situation, and therefore likely to 
excite the imagination of a poet ; where he pass- 
ed the rest of his life, reverenced for his virtue, 
and beloved for the softness of his temper, and 
the easiness of his manners. Before strangers 
he had something of the scholar's timidity or 
distrust ; but, when he became familiar, he was, 
in a very high degree, cheerful and entertaining. 
His general benevolence procured general re- 
spect ; and he passed a life placid and honourable, 



neither too great for the kindness of the low, nor 
too low for the notice of the great. 



At what time he composed his " Miscellany," 
published in 1727, it is not easy or necessary to 
know: those which have dates appear to have 
been very early productions; and I have not 
observed that any rise above mediocrity. 

The success of his " Vida" animated him to a 
higher undertaking; and in his thirtieth year 
he published a version of the first book of the* 
" iEneid." This being, I suppose, commended 
by his friends, he some time afterwards added 
three or four more, with an advertisement, in 
which he represents himself as translating with 
great indifference, and with a progress of which 
himself was hardly conscious. This can hardly 
be true, and, if true, is nothing to the reader. 

At last, without any further contention with 
his modesty, or any awe of the name of Dryden, 
he gave us a complete English " iEneid," which 
I am sorry not to see joined in this publication 
with his other poems.* It would have been 
pleasing to have an opportunity of comparing 
the two best translations that perhaps were ever 
produced by one nation of the same author. 

Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, nat- 
urally observed his failures, and avoided them ; 
and, as he wrote after Pope's " Iliad," he had 
an example of an exact, equable, and splendid 
versification. With these advantages, seconded 
by great diligence, he might successfully labour 
particular passages and escape many errors. If 
the two versions are compared, perhaps the re- 
sult would be, that Dryden leads the reader for- 
ward by his general vigour and sprightliness, 
and Pitt often stops him to contemplate the ex- 
cellence of a single couplet : that Dryden's faults 
are forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that 
Pitt's beauties are neglected in the langour of a 
cold and listless perusal, that Pitt pleases the 



It has since been added to tbe collection. 



THOMSON. 



315 



critics, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is 
quoted, and Dryden read. 

He did not long- enjoy the reputation which 
this great work deservedly conferred ; far he 
left the world in 1748, and lies buried under a 
stone at Blandford, on which is this inscrip- 
tion:— 

In Memory of 
Chr. Pitt, clerk, M A. 



Very eminent 

for his talents in poetry ; 

and yet more 

For the universal candour of 

his mind, and the primitive 

simplicity of his manners . 

He lived innocent ; 

and died beloved, 

Apr. 13, 1748. 

Aged 48. 



THOMSON. 



James Thomson, the son of a minister well es- 
teemed for his piety and diligence, was horn 
September 7, 1700, at Ednam, in the shire of 
Roxburgh, of which his father was pastor. His 
mother, whose name was Hume,* inherited as 
co-heiress a portion of a small estate. The re- 
venue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large ; 
and it was probably in commiseration of the 
difficulty with which Mr. Thomson supported 
his family, having nine children, that Mr. Ric- 
carton, a neighbouring minister, discovering in 
James uncommon promises of future excellence, 
undertook to superintend his education and pro- 
vide him books. 

He was taught the common rudiments of 
learmng at the school of Jedburg, a place which 
he delights to recollect inhis poem of "Autumn ;" 
but was not considered by his master as superi- 
or to common boys, though in those early days 
he amused his patron and his friends with poet- 
ical compositions ; with which, however, he so 
little pleased himself, that on every new-dear's 
day he threw into the fire all the productions of 
the foregoing year. 

From the school he was removed to Edin- 
burgh, where he had not resided two years when 
his father died, and left all his children to the 
care of their mother, who raised upon her little 
estate what money a mortgage could afford, and, 
removing with her family to Edinburgh, lived 
to see her son rising into eminence. 

The design of Thomson's friends was to breed 
him a minister. He lived at Edinburgh, as at 
school, without distinction or expectation, till, 
at the usual time, he performed a probationary 
exercise by explaining a psalm. His diction 
was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, 



* His mother's name was Beatrix Trotter 
grandmother's name was H'irne,-— C. 



His 



the Professor of Divinity, reproved him for 
speaking language unintelligible to a popular au- 
dience ; and he censured one of his expressions 
as indecent if not profane. 

This rebuke is reported to have repressed his 
thoughts of an ecclesiastical character, and he 
probably cultivated with new diligence his blos- 
soms of poetry, which, however, were in some 
danger of a blast ; for, submitting his produc- 
tions to some who thought themselves qualified 
to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults ; but 
finding other judges more favourable, he did not 
suffer himself to sink into despondence. 

He easily discovered that the only stage on 
which a poet could appear with any hope of ad- 
vantage was London ; a place too wide for the 
operation of petty competition and private ma- 
lignity, where merit might soon become conspi- 
cuous, and would find friends as soon as it be- 
came reputable to befriend it. A lady who was 
acquainted with his mother advised him to the 
journey, and promised some countenance or as- 
sistance, which at last he never received ; how- 
ever, he justified his adventure by her encour- 
agement, and came to seek in London patron- 
age and fame. 

At his arrival he found his way to Mr. 
Mallet, then tutor to the sons of the Duke of 
Montrose. He had recommendations to several 
persons of consequence, which he had tied up 
carefully in his handkerchief; but as he 
passed along the street, with the gaping curio- 
sity of a new-comer, his attention was upon 
every thing rather than his pocket, and his ma- 
gazine of credentials was stolen from him. 

His first want was a pair of shoes. For the 
supply of all his necessities, his whole fund was 
his " Winter," which for a time could find no 
purchaser ; till, at last, Mr. Millan was per- 
suaded to buy it at a low price ; and this low 
price he had for some time reason to regret ; but 
by accident, Mr. Whatley, a man not wholly 



816 



THOMSON. 



unknown among authors, happening to turn his 
eye upon it, was so delighted that he ran from 
place to place celebrating its excellence. Thom- 
son obtained likewise the notice of Aaron Hill, 
whom, being friendless and indigent, and glad 
of kindness, he courted with every expression of 
6ervile adulation. 

" Winter" was dedicated to Sir Spencer 
Compton, but attracted no regard from him to 
the author, till Aaron Hill awakened his atten- 
tion by some verses addressed to Thomson, and 
published in one of the newspapers, which cen- 
sured the great for their neglect of ingenious 
men. Thomson then received a present of 
twenty guineas, of which he gives this account 
to Mr. Hill : 

" I hinted to you in my last, that on Saturday 
morning I was with Sir Spencer Compton. A 
certain gentleman without my desire spoke to 
him concerning me : his answer was, that I had 
never come near him. Then the gentleman put 
the question, If he desired that I should wait 
on him ? He returned, he did. On this, the 
gentleman gave me an introductory letter to 
him. He received me in what they commonly 
call a civil manner ; asked me some common- 
place questions, and made me a present of twenty 
guineas. I am very ready to own that the pre- 
sent was larger than my performance deserved ; 
and shall ascribe it to his generosity, or any 
other cause, rather than the merit of the ad- 
dress." 

The poem, which, being of a new kind, few 
would venture at first to like, by degrees gained 
upon the public; and one edition was very 
speedily succeeded by another. 

Thomson's credit was now high, and every 
day brought him new friends; among others 
Dr. Rundle, a man afterwards unfortunately 
famous, sought his acquaintance, and found his 
qualities such, that he recommended him to the 
Lord Chancellor Talbot. 

*' Winter" was accompanied, in many edi- 
tions, not only with a preface and dedication, 
but with poetical praises by Mr. Hill, Mr. 
Mallet (then Malloch,) and Mira, the fictitious 
name of a lady once too- well-known. Why the 
dedications are to " Winter" and the other Sea- 
sons, contrarily to custom, left out in the col- 
lected works, the reader may inquire. 

The next year (1727) he distinguished himself 
by three publications : of " Summer," in pursu- 
ance of his plan ; of " A Poem on the Death of 
Sir Isaac Newton," which he was enabled to 
perform as an exact philosopher by the instruc- 
tion of Mr. Gray; and of " Britannia," a kind 
of poetical invective against the ministry, whom 
the nation then thought not forward enough in 
resenting the depredations of the Spaniards. 
By this piece he declared himself an adherent 
\ o the opposition, and had therefore no favour 
to expect from the court. 



Thomson, having been some time entertained 
in the family of the Lord Binning, was desirous 
of testifying his gratitude by making him the 
patron of his " Summer;" but the same kind- 
ness which had first disposed Lord Binning to 
encourage him determined him to refuse the 
dedication, which was by his advice addressed 
to Mr. Dodington, a man who had more power 
to advance the reputation and fortune of a poet. 

" Spring" was published next year, with a 
dedication to the Countess of Hertford ; whose 
practice it was to invite every summer some 
poet into the country, to hear her verses and 
assist her studies. This honour was one sum- 
mer conferred on Thomson, who took more de- 
light in carousing with Lord Hertford and his 
friends than assisting her ladyship's poetical 
operations, and therefore never received another 
summons. 

" Autumn," the season to which the " Spring" 
and " Summer" are preparatory, still remained 
unsung, and was delayed till he published (1730) 
his works collected. 

He produced in 1727 the tragedy of " Sophon- 
isba," which raised such expectation, that every 
rehearsal was dignified with a splendid audience, 
collected to anticipate the delight that was pre- 
paring for the public. It was observed, how- 
ever, that nobody was much affected, and that 
the company rose as from a moral lecture. 

It had upon the stage no unusual degree of 
success. Slight accidents will operate upon the 
taste of pleasure. There is a feeble line in the 
play: 

O Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O ! 
This gave occasion to a waggish parody 
O Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O ! 

which for a while was echoed through the 
town. 

I have been told by Savage, that of the pro- 
logue to " Sophonisba" the first part was written 
by Pope, who could not be persuaded to finish 
it, and that the concluding lines were added by 
Mallet. 

Thomson was not long afterwards, by the in- 
fluence of Dr. Rundle, sent to travel with Mr. 
Charles Talbot, the eldest son of the Chancellor. 
He was yet young enough to receive new im- 
pressions, to have his opinions rectified, and his 
views enlarged ; nor can he be supposed to have 
wanted that curiosity which is inseparable from 
an active and comprehensive mind. He may 
therefore now be supposed to have revelled in all 
the joys of intellectual luxury; he was every 
day feasted with instructive novelties; he lived 
splendidly without expense ; and might expect 
when he returned home a certain establish- 
ment. 

At this time a long course of opposition to 
Sir Robert Walpole had filled the nation with 



THOMSON. 



317 



clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the 
want ; and with care for liberty, which was 
not in danger. Thomson, in his travels on the 
Continent, found or fancied so many evils aris- 
ing from the tyranny of other governments, 
that he resolved to write a very long poem, in 
five parts upon Liberty. 

While he was busy on the first book, Mr. 
Talbot died ; and Thomson, who had been re- 
warded for his attendance by the place of secre- 
tary of the briefs, pays in the initial lines a de- 
cent tribute to his memory. 

Upon this great poem two years were spent, 
and the author congratulated himself upon it, 
as his noblest work; but an author and his 
reader are not always of a mind. Liberty call- 
ed in vain upon her votaries to read her praises 
and reward her encomiast; her praises were 
condemned to harbour spiders and to gather 
dust ; none of Thomson's performances were so 
little regarded. 

The judgment of the public was not errone- 
ous ; the recurrence of the same images must 
tire in time ; an enumeration of examples to 
prove a position which nobody denied, as it was 
from the beginning superfluous, must quickly 
grow disgusting. 

The poem of " Liberty" does not now appear 
in its original state ; but, when the author's 
works were collected after his death was short- 
ened by Sir George Lyttleton, with a liberty 
which, as it has a manifest tendency to lessen 
the confidence of society, and to confound the 
characters of authors, by making one man 
write by the judgment of another, cannot be 
justified by any supposed propriety of the alter- 
ation, or kindness of the friend. — I wish to see 
it exhibited as its author left it. 

Thomson now lived in ease and plenty, and 
seems for awhile to have suspended his poetry ; 
but he was soon called back to labour by the 
death of the Chancellor, for his place then be- 
came vacant; and though the Lord Hardwicke 
delayed for some time to give it away, Thom- 
son's bashfulness or pride, or some other motive 
perhaps not more laudable, withheld him from 
soliciting ; and the new Chancellor would not 
give him what he would not ask. 

He now relapsed to his former indigence ; 
but the Prince of Wales was at that time 
struggling for popularity, and by the influence 
of Mr. Lyttleton professed himself the patron 
of wit : to him Thomson was introduced, and 
being gaily interrogated about the state of his 
affairs, said, " that they were in a more poetical 
posture than formerly ;" and had a pension al- 
lowed him of one hundred pounds a year. 

Being now obliged to write, he produced 
(1738*) the tragedy of " Agamemnon," which 



It is not generally known that in this year an 



was much shortened in the representation. It 
had the fate which most commonly attends my- 
thological stories, and "was only endured, but 
not favoured. It struggled with such difficulty 
through the first night, that Thomson, coming 
late to his friends with whom he was to sup, 
excused his delay by telling them how the sweat 
of his distress had so disordered his wig, that 
he could not come till he had been refitted by a 
barber. 

He so interested himself in his own drama, 
that, if I remember right, as he sat in the up- 
per gallery, he accompanied the players by au- 
dible recitation, till a friendly hint frighted him 
to silence. Pope countenanced " Agamem- 
non," by coming to it the first night, and was 
welcomed to the theatre by a general clap ; he 
had much regard for Thomson, and once ex- 
pressed it in a poetical epistle sent to Italy, of 
which however he abated the value, by tran- 
slating some of the lines into his epistle to 
Arbuthnot. 

About this time the act was passed for licens- 
ing plays, of which the first operation was the 
prohibition of " Gustavus "Vasa," a tragedy of 
Mr. Brooke," whom the public recompensed by 
a very liberal subscription; the next was the 
refusal of " Edward and Eleonora," offered 
by Thomson. It is hard to discover why ei- 
ther play should have, been obstructed. Thom- 
son likewise endeavoured to repair his loss by a 
subscription, of which I cannot now tell the 
success. 

When the public murmured at the unkind 
treatment of Thomson, one of the ministerial 
writers remarked, that " he had taken a liberty 
which was not agreeable to Britannia in any 
season. 

He was soon after employed, in conjunction 
with Mr. Mallet, to write the mask of " Al- 
fred," which was acted before the Prince at 
Cliefden-House. 

His next work (1745) was " Tancred and 
Sigismunda," the most successful of all his tra- 
gedies, for it still keeps its turn upon the stage. 
It may be doubted whether he was, either by 
the bent of nature or habits of study, much 
qualified for tragedy. It does not appear that 
he had much sense of the pathetic ; and his dif- 
fusive and descriptive style produced declama- 
tion rather than dialogue. 

His friend Mr. Lyttleton was now in power, 
and conferred upon him the office of surveyor- 
gen eral of the Leeward Islands ; from which, 
when his deputy was paid, he received about 
three hundred pounds a year. 

The last piece that he lived to publish was 
the " Castle of Indolence," which was many 



edition ot Milton's " Areopagitica" was published 
by Millar, to which Thomson wrote a preface. — C. 

Ss 



318 



T II OMSO N. 



years under his hand, but was at last finished 
with great accuracy. The first canto opens a 
scene of lazy luxury that fills the imagination. 

He was now at ease, hut was not long to en- 
joy it ; for, by taking cold on the water between 
London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which, 
with some careless exasperation, ended in a 
fever that put an end to his life, August 27, 
1 748. He was buried in the church of Rich- 
mond, without an inscription; but a monument 
has been erected to his memory in Westminster- 
Abbey. 

Thomson was of a stature above the middle 
size, and " more fat than bard beseems,'' of a 
dull countenance, and a gross, unanimated, un- 
inviting appearance ; silent in mingled company, 
but cheerful among select friends, and by his 
friends very tenderly and warmly beloved. 

He left behind him the tragedy of " Coriola- 
nus," which was, by the zeal of his patron, Sir 
George Lyttleton, brought upon the stage for 
the benefit of his family, and recommended by a 
prologue, which Quin, who had long lived with 
Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in such a 
manner as showed him " to be," on that occa- 
sion, "no actor." The commencement of this 
benevolence is very honourable to Quin ; who 
is reported to have delivered Thomson, then 
known to him only for his genius, from an ar- 
rest by a very considerable present ; and its con- 
tinuance is honourable to both, for friendship is 
not always the sequel of obligation. By this 
tragedy a considerable sum was raised, of which 
part discharged his debts, and the rest was re- 
mitted to his sisters, whom, however removed 
from them by place or condition, he regarded 
with great tenderness, as will appear by the fol- 
lowing letter, which I communicate with much 
pleasure, as it gives me at once an opportunity of 
recording the fraternal kindness of Thomson, 
and reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. 
Boswell, from whom I received it. 

" Hagely, in Worcestershire, 
" October the 4th, 1747. 
" My dear Sister, 

" I thought you had known me better than to 
interpret my silence into a decay of affection, 
especially as your behaviour has always been 
such as rather to increase than diminish it. 
Don't imagine, because I am a bad correspon- 
dent, that I can ever pi'ove an unkind friend 
and brother. I must do myself the justice to 
tell you, that my affections are naturally very 
fixed and constant; and if I had ever reason of 
complaint against you (of which by-the-bye I 
have not the least shadow,) I am conscious of so 
many defects in myself, as dispose me to be not 
a little charitable and forgiving. 

" It gives me the truest heart-felt satisfaction 
to hear you have a good, kind husband, and are 
i.': easy, contented circumstances; but were they 



otherwise, that would only awaken and heig.i1> 
en my tenderness towards you. As our good 
and tender-hearted parents did not live to re- 
ceive any material testimonies of that highest 
human gratitude I owed them (than which no- 
thing could have given me equal pleasure,) the 
only return I can make them now is by kind- 
ness to those they left behind them. Would to 
God poor Lizy had lived longer, to have been a 
farther witness of the truth of what I say, and 
that I might have had the pleasure of seeing 
once more a sister who so truly deserved my 
esteem and love ! But she is happy, while we 
must toil a little longer here below ; let us how- 
ever do it cheerfully and gratefully, supported 
by the pleasing hope of meeting yet again on a 
safer shore, where to recollect the storms and 
difficulties of life will not perhaps be inconsist- 
ent with that blissful state. You did right to call 
your daughter by her name ; for you must needs 
have had a particular tender friendship for one 
another, endeared as you were by nature, by hav- 
ing passed the affectionate years of your youth 
together, and by that great softener and engager 
of hearts, mutual hardship. That it was in my 
power to ease it a little, I account one of the 
most exquisite pleasures of my life. — But enough 
of this melancholy, though not unpleasing strain. 
" I esteem you for your sensible and disinter- 
ested advice to Mr. Bell, as you will see by my 
letter to him ; as 1 approve entirely of his mar- 
rying again, you may readily ask me why I 
don't marry at all. My circumstances have 
hitherto been so variable and uncertain in this 
fluctuating world, as induce to keep me from en- 
gaging in such a state ; and now, though they 
are more settled, and of late (which you will be 
glad to hear) considerably improved, I begin to 
think myself too far advanced in life for such 
youthful undertakings, not to mention some 
other petty reasons that are apt to startle the 
delicacy of difficult old bachelors. I am, how- 
ever, not a little suspicious that, was I to pay a 
visit to Scotland (which I have some thoughts 
of doing soon), I might possibly be tempted to 
think of a thing not easily repaired if done 
amiss. I have always been of opinion, that 
none make better wives than the ladies of Scot- 
land ; and yet, who more forsaken than they, 
while the gentlemen are continually running 
abroad all the world over ? Some of them, it is 
true, are wise enough to return for a wife. You 
see I am beginning to make interest already 
with the Scots ladies. But no more of this in- 
fectious subject. — Pray let me hear from you 
now and then ; and though I am not a regular 
correspondent, yet perhaps I may mend in that 
respect. Remember me kindly to your hus- 
band, and believe me to be 

" Your most afiectionate brother, 

" James Thomson.' 
Addressed " To Mrs. Thomson in Lanark." 



T H OMSO N. 



319 



The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but 
not active ; he would give on all occasions what 
assistance his purse would supply ; but the offi- 
ces of intervention or solicitation he could not 
conquer his sluggishness sufficiently to perform. 
The affairs of others, however, were not more 
neglected than his own. He had often felt the 
inconveniences of idleness, but he never cured 
it ; and was so conscious of his own character, 
tbat he talked of writing an eastern tale " of 
the Man who loved to be in Distress." 

Among his peculiarities was a very unskilful 
and inarticulate manner of pronouncing any 
lofty or solemn composition. He was once 
reading to Dodington, who, being himself a 
reader eminently elegant, was so much provoked 
by his odd utterance, that he snatched the pa- 
per from his hands, and told him that he did 
not imderstand his own verses. 

The biographer of Thomson has remarked, 
that an author's life is best read in his works : 
his observation was not well-timed. Savage, 
who lived much with Thomson, once told me, 
he heard a lady remarking that she could gather 
from his works three parts of his character, 
that he was a great lover, a great swimmer, and 
rigorously abstinent;" but, said Savage, he 
knows not any love but that of the sex ; he 
was perhaps never in cold water in his life; 
and he indulges himself in all the luxury that 
comes within his reach. Yet Savage always 
spoke with the most eager praise of his social 
qualities, his warmth and constancy of friend- 
ship, and his adherence to his first acquaintance 
when the advancement of his reputation had 
left them behind him. 

As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the 
highest kind : his mode of thinking, and of ex- 
pressing his thoughts, is original. His blank 
verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or 
of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are 
the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his 
pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, 
without transcription, without imitation. He 
thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always 
as a man of genius : he looks round on Nature 
and on Life with the eye which Nature bestoAvs 
only on a poet ; the eye that distinguishes, in 
every thing presented to its view, whatever 
there is on which imagination can delight to be 
detained, and with a mind that at once compre- 
hends the vast and attends to the minute. The 
reader of " The Seasons" wonders that he 
never saw before what Thomson shows him, 
and that he never yet has felt what Thomson 
impresses. 

His is one of the works in which blank verse 
seems properly used. Thomson's wide expan- 



sion of general views, and his enumeration of 
circumstantial varieties, would have been ob- 
structed and embarrassed by the frequent inter- 
sections of the sense which arc the necessary 
effects of rhyme. 

His descriptions of extended scenes and gene- 
ral effects .bring before us the whole magnifi- 
cence of Nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. 
The gayety pf Spring, the splendour of Sum- 
mer, the tranquillity of Autumn, and the horror 
of Winter.) take in their turns possession of the 
mind. The poet leads us through the appear- 
ances of things as they are successively varied 
by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to 
us so much of his own enthusiasm, that our 
thoughts expand with his imagery and kindle 
with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist 
without his part in the entertainment ; for he 
is assisted to recollect and to combine, to range 
his discoveries and to amplify the sphere of his 
contemplation 

The great defect of " The Seasons" is want 
of method ; but for this I know not that there 
was any remedy. Of many appearances sub- 
sisting all at once, no rule can be given why 
one should be mentioned before another; yet 
the memory wants the help of order, and the 
curiosity is not excited by suspense or ex- 
pectation. 

His diction is in the highest degree florid and 
luxuriant, such as may be said to be to his ima- 
ges and thoughts " both their lustre and their 
shade;" such as invest them with splendour, 
through which perhaps they are not always 
easily discerned. It is too exuberant, and 
sometimes may be charged with filling the ear 
more than the mind. 

These poems, with which I was acquainted 
at their first appearance, I have since found al- 
tered and enlarged by subsequent revisals, as 
the Author supposed his judgment to grow 
more exact, and as books or conversation ex- 
tended his knowledge and opened his prospects. 
They are, 1 think, improved in general ; yet 1 
know not whether they have not lost part of 
what Temple calls their " race ;" a word which, 
applied to wines in its primitive sense, mea^ts 
the flavour of the soil. 

" Liberty," when it first appeared, I tried to 
read, and scon desisted. 1 have never tried 
again, and therefore will not hazard either 
praise or censure. 

The highest praise which he has received 
ought not to be suppressed : it is said by Lord 
Lyttelton, in the prologue to his posthumous 
play, that his works contained 

No line which, dying, he could wish to blot. 



W ATTS, 



The poems of Dr. Watts were by my recom- 
mendation inserted in the late Collection; the 
readers of which are to impute to me whatever 
pleasure or weariness they may find in the per- 
usal of Blackmorc, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden. 

Isaac Watts was born July 17, 1674, at 
Southampton, where his father, of the same 
name, kept a boarding-school for young gentle- 
men, though common report makes him a shoe- 
maker. He appears, from the narrative of Dr. 
Gibbons, to have been neither indigent nor il- 
literate. 

Isaac, the eldest of nine children, was given 
to books from his infancy ; and began, we are 
told, to learn Latin when he was four years old ; 
I suppose, at home. He was afterwards taught 
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by Mr. Pinhorn, 
a clergyman, master of the free-school at South- 
ampton, to whom the gratitude of his scholar 
afterwards inscribed a Latin ode. 

His proficiency at school was so conspicuous, 
that a subscription was proposed for his support 
at the university ; but he declared his resolution 
of taking his lot with the dissenters. Such he 
was as every Christian church would rejoice to 
have adopted. 

He therefore repaired, in 1690, to an academy 
taught by Mr. Rowe, where he had for his 
companions and fellow-students Mr. Hughes 
the poet, and Dr. Horte, afterwards archbishop 
of Tuam. Some Latin essays, supposed to have 
been written as exercises at this academy, show 
a degree of knowledge both philosophical and 
theological, such as very few attain by a much 
longer course of study. 

He was, as he hints in his Miscellanies, a 
maker of verses from fifteen to fifty, and in his 
youth he appears to have paid attention to Latin 
poetry. His verses to his brother, in the gly- 
conick measure, written when he was seventeen, 
are remarkably easy and elegant. Some of his 
other odes are deformed by the Pindaric folly 
then prevailing, and are written with such ne- 
glect of all metrical rules, as is without example 
among the ancients ; but his diction, though 
perhaps not always exactly pure, has such copi- 
ousness and splendour, as shows that he was but 
a very little distance from excellence. 

His method of study was to impress the con- 
tents of his books upon his memory by abridging 



them, and by interleaving them to amplify obo 
system with supplements from another. 

W'ith the congregation of his tutor, Mr. 
Rowc, who were, I believe, independents, he 
communicated in his nineteenth year. 

At the age of twenty he left the academy, and 
spent two years in study and devotion at the 
house of his father, who treated him with great 
tenderness; and had the happiness, indulged to 
few parents, of living to see his son eminent for 
literature, and venerable for piety. 

He was then entertained by Sir John Har- 
topp five years, as domestic tutor to his son ; 
and in that time particularly devoted himself to 
the study of the Holy Scriptures ; and, being 
chosen assistant to Dr. Chauncey, preached the 
first time on the birth-day that completed his 
twenty-fourth year; probably considering that 
as the day of a second nativity, by which he 
entered on a new period of existence. 

In about three years he succeeded Dr. Chaun- 
cey ; but soon after his entrance on his charge, 
he was seized by a dangerous illness, which 
sunk him to such "weakness, that the congrega- 
tion thought an assistant necessary, and appoint- 
ed Mr. Price. His health then returned gradu- 
ally ; and he performed his duty till (1712) he 
was seized by a fever of such violence and con- 
tinuance, that from the feebleness which it 
brought upon him he never perfectly recovered. 

This calamitous state made the compassion of 
his friends necessary, and drew upon him the 
attention of Sir Thomas Abney, Avho received 
him into his hcuse ; where, with a constancy of 
friendship and uniformity of conduct not ofteu 
to be found, he was treated for thirty-six years 
wkh all the kindness that friendship could 
prompt, and all the attention that respect could 
dictate. Sir Thomas died about eight years 
afterwards; but he continued with the lady and 
her daughters to the end of his life. The lady 
died about a year after him. 

A coalition like this, a state in which the no 
tions of patronage and dependence were over- 
powered by the perception of reciprocal benefit; 
deserves a particular memorial; and I will nni 
withhold from the reader Dr. Gibbon's repre- 
sentation ; to which regard is to be paid, as to 
the narrative of one who writes what he knows, 
and what is known likewise to multitudes bf- 
sides. 



WATTS. 



321 



" Our next observation shall be made upon 
that remarkably kind Providence which brought 
the Doctor into Sir Thomas Abney's family, 
and continued him there till his death, a period 
of no less than thirty-six years. In the midst 
of his sacred labours for the glory of God, and 
good of his generation, he is seized with a most 
violent and threatening fever, which leaves him 
oppressed with gi-eat weakness, and puts a stop 
at least to his public services for four years. In 
this distressing season, doubly so to his active 
and pious spirit, he is invited to Sir Thomas 
Abney's family, nor ever removes from it till he 
had finished his days. Here he enjoyed the un- 
interrupted demonstrations of the truest friend- 
ship. Here, without any care of his own, he 
had every thing which could contribute to the 
enjoyment of life, and favour the unwearied 
pursuits of his studies. Here he dwelt in a fa- 
mily, which for piety, order, harmony, and 
every virtue, was an house of God. Here he 
had the privilege of a country recess, the fra- 
grant bower, the spreading lawn, the flowery 
garden, and other advantages, to soothe his mind 
and aid his restoration to health ; to yield him, 
whenever he chose them, most grateful intervals 
from his laborious studies, and enable him to re- 
turn to them with redoubled vigour and delight. 
Had it not been for this most happy event, he 
might, as to outward view, have feebly, it may 
be painfully, dragged on through many more 
years of languor, and inability for public ser- 
vice, and even for profitable study, or perhaps 
might have sunk into his grave under the over- 
whelming load of infirmities in the midst of his 
days ; and thus the church and world would 
have been deprived of those many excellent ser- 
mons and works which he drew up and pub- 
lished during his long residence in this family. 
In a few years after his coming hither, Sir 
Thomas Abney dies; but his amiable consort 
survives, who shows the Doctor the same re- 
spect and friendship as before, and most happily 
for him and great numbers besides ; for, as her 
riches were great, her generosity and munifi- 
cence were in full proportion ; her thread of life 
was drawn out to a great age, even beyond that 
of the Doctor's; and thus this excellent man, 
through her kindness, and that of her daughter, 
the present Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a 
like degree esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed 
all the benefits and felicities he experienced at 
his first entrance into this family, till his days 
were numbered and finished ; and, like a shock 
of corn in its season, he ascended into the re- 
gions of perfect and immortal life and joy." 

If this quotation has appeared long, let it be 
considered that it comprises an account of six- 
and thirty years, and those the years of Dr. 
Watts. 

From the time of his reception into this fami- 



ly, his life was no otherwise diversified than by 
successive publications. The series of his works 
I am not able to deduce ; their number and 
their variety show the intenseness of his indus- 
try, and the extent of his capacity. 

He was one of the first authors that taught 
the dissenters to court attention by the graces of 
language. Whatever they had among them be- 
fore, whether of learning or acuteness, was 
commonly obscured and blunted by coarseness 
and inelegance of style. He showed them, that 
zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced 
by polished diction. 

He continued to the end of his life the teacher 
of a congregation ; and no reader of his works 
can doubt his fidelity or diligence. In the pul- 
pit, though his low stature, which very little ex- 
ceeded five feet, graced him with no advantages 
of appearance, yet the gravity and propriety of 
his utterance made his discourses very efficacious. 
I once mentioned the reputation which Mr. 
Foster had gained by his proper delivery to my 
friend Dr. Hawkesworth, who told me, that in 
the art of pronunciation he was far inferior to 
Dr. Watts. 

Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his 
promptitude of language, that in the latter part 
of his life he did not precompose his cursory 
sermons, but having adjusted the heads, and 
sketched out some particulars, trusted for suc- 
cess to his extemporary powers. 

He did not endeavour to assist his eloquence 
by any gesticulations ; for, as no corporeal ac- 
tions have any correspondence with theological 
truth, he did not see how they could enforce it. 

At the conclusion of weighty sentences he 
gave time, by a short pause, for the proper im- 
pression. 

To stated and public instruction he added fa- 
miliar visits and personal application, and was 
careful to improve the opportunities which con- 
versation offered of diffusing and increasing the 
influence of religion. 

By his natural temper he was quick of resent- 
ment ; but by his established and habitual prac- 
tice he was gentle, modest, and inoffensive. His 
tenderness appeared in his attention to children, 
and to the poor. To the poor, while he lived in 
the family of his friend, he allowed the third 
part of his annual revenue, though the whole 
was not a hundred a-year ; and for children he 
condescended to lay aside the scholar, the philo- 
sopher, and the wit, to write little poems of devo- 
tion, and systems of instruction, adapted to their 
wants and capacities, from the dawn of reason 
through its gradations of advance in the morn- 
ing of life. Every man, acquainted with the 
common principles of human action, will look 
with veneration on the writer, who is at one 
time combating Locke, and at another making a 
catechism for children in their fourth year. A 



322 



WATTS. 



voluntary descent from the dignity of science is 
perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can 
teach. 

As his mind was capacious, his curiosity ex- 
cursive, and his industry continual, his writings 
are very numerous, and his subjects various. 
With his theological works I am only enough 
acquainted to admire his meekness of opposition 
and his mildness of censure. It was not only in 
his book, but in his mind, that orthodox?/ was 
United with charity. 

Of his philosophical pieces, his " Logic" has 
been received into the universities, and therefore 
wants no private recommendation ; if he owes 
part of it to Le Clerc, it must be considered that 
no man, who undertakes merely to methodize 
or illustrate a system, pretends to be its author. 

In his metaphysical disquisitions, it was ob- 
served by the late learned Mr. Dyer, that he 
confounded the idea of space with that of empty 
space, and did not consider that though space 
might be without matter, yet matter being ex- 
tended could not be without space. 

Few books have been perused by me with 
greater pleasure than his '" Improvement of the 
Mind," of which the radical principles may in- 
deed be found in Locke's " Conduct of the Un- 
derstanding;" but they are so expanded and 
ramified by Watts, as to confer upon him the 
merit of a work in the highest degree useful and 
pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing 
others may be charged with deficience in his 
duty if this book is not recommended. 

I have mentioned his treatises of theology as 
distinct from his other productions; but the 
truth is, that whatever he took in hand was, by 
his incessant solicitude for souls, converted to 
theology. As piety predominated in his mind, 
it is diffused over his works ; under his direction 
it may be truly said, theologwe philosophia ancilla- 
tur, philosophy is subservient to evangelical in- 
struction; it is difficult to read a page without 
learning, or at least wishing, to be better. The 
attention is caught by indirect instruction, and 
he that sat down only to reason is on a sudden 
compelled to pray. 

It was therefore with great propriety that, in 
1728, he received from Edinburgh and Aberdeen 
an unsolicited diploma, by which he became a 
doctor of divinity. Academical honours would 
have more value, if they were always bestowed 
with equal judgment. 

He continued many years to study and to 
preach, and to do good by his instruction and 
example ; till at last the infirmities of age dis- 
abled him from the more laborious part of his 
ministerial functions, and, being no longer cap- 
able of public duty, he offered to remit the salary 



appendant to it ; but his congregation would not 
accept the resignation. 

By degrees his weakness increased, and at last 
confined him to his chamber and his bed ; where 
he was worn gradually away without pain, till 
he expired, Nov. 25, 1743, in the seventy-fifth 
year of his age. 

Few men have left behind such purity of 
character, or such monuments of laborious piety. 
He has provided instruction for all ages, from 
those who are lisping their first lessons, to the 
enlightened readers of Malbranche and Locke ; 
he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nature 
unexamined ; he has taught the art of reasoning, 
and the science of the stars. 

His charactei', therefore, must be formed from 
the multiplicity and diversity of his attainments, 
rather than from any single performance ; for it 
would not be safe to claim, for him the highest 
rank in any single denomination of literary dig- 
nity; yet perhaps there was nothing in which 
he would not have excelled, if he had not divid- 
ed his powers, to different pursuits. 

As a poet, had he been only a poet, he would 
probably have stood high among the authors 
with whom he is now associated. For his judg- 
ment was exact, and he noted beauties and faults 
with very nice discernment ; his imagination, as 
the " Dacian Battle" proves, was vigorous and 
active, and the stores of knowledge were large 
by which his fancy was to be supplied. His ear 
was well tuned, and his diction was elegant and 
copious, but his devotional poetry is, like that of 
others, unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topics 
enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity 
of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative 
diction. It is sufficient for Watts to have done 
better than others what no man has done well. 

His poems on other subjects seldom rise higher 
than might be expected from the amusements of 
a man of letters, and have different degrees of 
value as they are more or less laboured, or as the 
occasion was more or less favourable to invention. 

He writes too often without regular measures, 
and too often in blank verse ; the rhymes are 
not always sufficiently correspondent. He is 
particularly unhappy in coining names expres- 
sive of characters. His lines are commonly 
smooth and easy, and his thoughts always re- 
ligiously pure ; but who is there that, to so much 
piety and innocence, does not wish for a greater 
measure of sprightliness and vigour ! He is at 
least one of the few poets with whom youth and 
ignorance may be safely pleased ; and happy will 
be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his 
verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his 
nonconformity, to copy his benevolence to man, 
and his reverence to God. 



A. PHILIPS. 



Of the birth or early part of the life of Am- 
brose Philips I have not been able to find 
any account. His academical education he re- 
ceived at St. John's College, in Cambridge,* 
where he first solicited the notice of the world 
by some English verses, in the collection pub- 
lished by the university on the death of Queen 
Mary. 

From this time how he was employed, or in 
what station he passed his life, is not yet dis- 
covered. He must have published his Pastorals 
before the year 1708, because they are evidently 
prior to those of Pope. 

He afterwards (1709) addressed to the uni- 
versal patron, the Duke of Dorset, a " Poetical 
Letter from Copenhagen," which was pub- 
lished in the " Tatler," and is by Pope in one 
of his first letters mentioned with high praise, 
as the production of a man " who could write 
very nobly." 

Philips was a zealous whig, and therefore 
easily found access to Addison and Steele; but 
his ardour seems not to have procured him any 
thing more than kind words ; since he was re- 
duced to translate the " Pei'sian Tales" for 
Tonson, for which he was afterwards reproach- 
ed, with this addition of contempt, that he 
worked for half-a-crown. The book is divided 
into many sections, for each of which, if he re- 
ceived half-a-crown, his reward, as writers 
then were paid, was very liberal ; but h'alf-a- 
crown had a mean sound. 

He was employed in promoting the principles 
of his party, by epitomising Hacket's " Life of 
Archbishop Williams." The original book is 
written with such depravity of genius, such 
mixture of the fop and pedant, as has not often 
appeared. The epitome is free enough from af- 
fectation, but has little spirit or vigour. f 

In 1712 he brought upon the stage " The 
Distrest Mother," almost a translation of Ra- 
cine's " Andromaque." Such a work requires 
no uncommon powers ; but the friends of Phi- 
lips exerted every art to promote his interest. 
Before the appearance of the play, a whole 



* He took his degrees, A. B, 1686, A. M. 1700.— C. 

t This ought to have been noticed before. It was 
published in 1 TOO, -when he appears to ■ 
a fellowship of St. John's.— C. 



Spectator, none indeed of the best, was devoted 
to its praise ; while it yet continued to be 
acted, another Spectator was written, to tell 
what impression it made upon Sir Roger ; and 
on the first night a select audience, says Pope,* 
was called together to applaud it. 

It was concluded with the most successful 
epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the Eng- 
glish theatre. The three first nights it was re- 
cited twice ; and not only continued to be de- 
demanded through the run, as it is termed, of 
the play, but whenever it is recalled to the stage, 
where by peculiar fortune, though a copy from 
the French, it yet keeps its place, the epilogue 
is still expected, and is still spoken. 

The propriety of epilogues in general, and 
consequently of this, was questioned by a cor- 
respondent of " The Spectator," whose letter 
was undoubtedly admitted for the sake of the 
answer, which soon followed, written with 
much zeal and acrimony. The attack and the 
defence equally contributed to stimulate curi- 
osity and continue attention. It may be disco- 
vered in the defence, that Prior's epilogue to 
" Phsedra" had a little excited jealousy; and 
something of Prior's plan maybe discovered in 
the performance of his rival. Of this distin- 
guished epilogue the reputed author was the 
wretched Budgel, whom Addison used to deno- 
minate * " the man who calls me cousin ;" and 
when he was asked how such a silly fellow 
could write so well, replied, " The epilogue was 
quite another thing when I saw it first." It 
was known in Tonson' s family, and told to 
Garrick, that Addison was himself the author 
of it, and that, when it had been at first printed 
with his name, he came early in the morning, 
before the copies were distributed, and ordered 
it to be given to Budgel, that it might add 
weight to the solicitation which he was then 
making for a place. 

Philips was now high in the ranks of litera- 
ture. His play was applauded: his translations 
from Sappho had been published in " The Spec- 
tator;" he was an important and distinguished 
associate of clubs, witty and political ; and no- 
thing was wanting to his happiness, but that 
he should be sure of its continuance. 



Spence. 



324 



A. PHILIPS. 



The work which had procured him the first 
notice from the public was his six pastorals, 
which, flattering the imagination with Arcadi- 
an scenes, probably found many readers, and 
might have long passed as a pleasing amuse- 
ment, had they not been unhappily too much 
commended. 

The rustic poems of Theocritus were so high- 
ly valued by the Greeks and Romans, that they 
attracted the imitation of Virgil, whose Ec- 
logues seem to have been considered as preclud- 
ing all attempts of the same kind ; for no shep- 
herds were taught to sing by any succeeding 
poet, till Nemesian and Calphurnius ventured 
their feeble efforts in the lower age of Latin li- 
terature. 

At the revival of learning in Italy, it was 
soon discovered that a dialogue of imaginary 
swains might be composed with little difficulty; 
because the convei'sation of shepherds excludes 
profound or refined sentiment ; and for images 
and descriptions, satyrs and fauns, and naiads 
and dryads, were always within call ; and woods 
and meadows, and hills and rivers, supplied va- 
riety of matter, which, having a natural power 
to soothe the mind, did not quickly cloy it. 

Petrarch entertained the learned men of his 
age with the novelty of modern pastorals in La- 
tin. Being not ignorant of Greek, and finding 
nothing in the word eclogue of rural meaning, 
he supposed it to be corrupted by the copiers, 
and therefore called his own productions ceclogues, 
by which he meant to express the talk of goat- 
herds, though it will mean only the talk of 
goats. This new name was adopted by subse- 
quent writers, and amongst others by our 
Spenser. 

More than a century afterwards (1498) Man- 
tuan published his Bucolics with such success, 
that they were soon dignified by Badius "with a 
comment, and, as Scaliger complained, received 
into schools, and taught as classical ; his com- 
plaint was vain, and the practice, however inju- 
dicious, spread far, and continued long. Man- 
tuan was read, at least in some of the inferior 
schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the 
present century. The speakers of Man tuan car- 
I'ied their disquisitions beyond the country, to 
censure the corruptions of the church ; and from 
him Spenser learned to employ his swains cm 
topics of controversy. 

The Italians soon transferred pastoral poetry 
into their own language ; Sanazzaro wrote 
" Arcadia," in prose and verse; Tasso and 
Guarini wrote " Favole Boschareccie," or syl- 
van dramas ; and all the nations of Europe 
filled volumes with Thyrsis and Damon, and 
Thestylis and Phylis. 

Philips thinks it " somewhat strange to con- 
ceive how, in an age so addicted to the Muses, 
pastoral poetry never comes to be so much as 
thought upon." His wonder seems very un- 



seasonable ; there had never, from the time of 
Spenser, wanted writers to talk occasionally of 
Arcadia and Strephon ; and half the book, in 
which he first tried his powers, consists of dia- 
logues on Queen Mary's death, between Tityrus 
and Corydon, or Mopsus and Menalcas. A 
series or book of pastorals, however I know not 
that any one had then lately published. 

Not long afterwards Pope made the first dis- 
play of his powers in four pastorals, written in a 
very different form. Philips had taken Spenser, 
and Pope took Virgil for his pattern. Philips 
endeavoured to be natural, Pope laboured to be 
elegant. 

Philips was now favoured by Addison, and 
by Addison's companions, who were very will- 
ing to push him into reputation. The " Guar- 
dian" gave an account of pastoral, partly criti- 
cal, and partly historical; in which, when the 
merit of the modern is compared, Tasso and 
Guarini are censured for remote thoughts and 
unnatural refinements ; and, upon the whole, 
the Italians and French are all excluded from 
rural poetry ; and the pipe of the pastoral muse 
is transmitted by lawful inheritance from The- 
ocritus to Virgil, from Virgil to Spenser, and 
from Spenser to Philips. 

With this inauguration of Philips, his rival 
Pope was not much delighted ; he therefore 
drew a comparison of Philip's performance with 
his own, in which, with an unexampled and 
unequalled artifice of irony, though he has him- 
self always the advantage, he gives the prefer- 
ence to Philips. The design of aggrandizing 
himself he disguised with such dexterity, that, 
though Addison discovered it, Steele was de- 
ceived, and was afraid of displeasing Pope by 
publishing his paper. Published however it 
was ( Guard. 40. ) ; and from that time Pope 
and Philips lived in a perpetual reciprocation of 
malevolence. 

In poetical powers, of either praise or satire, 
there was no proportion between the combat- 
ants ; but Philips, though he could not pre- 
vail by wit, hoped to hurt Pope with another 
weapon, and charged him, as Pope thought, 
with Addison's approbation, as disaffected to 
the government. 

Even with this he was not satisfied ; for, in- 
deed, there is no appearance that any regard 
was paid to his clamours. He proceeded to 
grosser insults, and hung up a rod at Button's, 
with which he threatened to chastise Pope, who 
appears to have been extremely exasperated ; for 
in the first edition of his Letters he calls Philips 
" rascal," and in the last charges him with de- 
taining in his hands the subscriptions for Ho- 
mer delivered to him by the Hanover Club. 

I suppose it was never suspected that he 
meant to appropriate the money ; he only de- 
layed, and with sufficient meanness, the gratifi- 
cation of him by whose prosperity he was pained. 



A. PHILIPS. 



325 



Men sometimes suffer by injudicious kind- 
ness ; Philips became ridiculous, without his 
own fault, by the absurd admiration of his 
friends, who decorated him with honorary gar- 
lands, which the first breath of contradiction 
blasted. 

When upon the succession of the house of 
Hanover every whig expected to be happy, 
Philips seems to have obtained too little notice ; 
he caught few drops of the golden shower, 
though he did not omit what flattery could per- 
form. He was only made a commissioner of the 
lottery (1717), and, what did not much elevate 
his character, a justice of the peace. 

The success of his first play must naturally 
dispose him to turn his hopes towards the stage ; 
he did not however soon commit himself to the 
mercy of an audience, but contented himself 
with .the fame already acquired, till after nine 
years he produced (1722) " The Briton," a tra- 
gedy, which, whatever was its reception, is now 
neglected ; though one of the scenes, between 
Vauoc, the British prince, and Valens, the Ro- 
man general, is confessed to be written with 
great dramatic skill, animated by spirit truly 
poetical. 

He had not been idle, though he had been si- 
lent ; for he exhibited another tragedy the same 
year, on the story of " Humphrey Duke of 
Gloucester." This tragedy is only remembered 
by its title. 

His happiest undertaking was of a paper call- 
ed " The Freethinker," in conjunction with 
associates, of whom one was Dr. Boulter, who, 
then only minister of a parish in Southwark, 
was of so much consequence to the government, 
that he was made first, bishop of Bristol, and 
afterwards primate of Ireland, where his piety 
and his charity will be long honoured. 

It may easily be imagined that what was 
printed under the direction of Boulter would 
have nothing in it indecent or licentious; its 
title is to be understood as implying only free- 
dom from unreasonable prejudice. It has been 
reprinted in volumes, but is little read ; nor 
can impartial criticism recommend it as worthy 
of revival. 

Boulter was not well qualified to write diur- 
nal essays ; but he knew how to practise the li- 
berality of greatness and the fidelity of friend- 
ship. When he was advanced to the height of 
ecclesiastical dignity, he did not forget the com- 
panion of his labours. Knowing Philips to be 
slenderly supported, he took him to Ireland, as 
partaker of his fortune ; and, making him his se- 
cretary,* added such preferments as enabled him 
to represent the county of Armagh in the 
Irish parliament. 



• The Archbishop's " Letters," published hi 1769 
(the originals of which are now in Christ Church 
library, Oxford) were collected by Mr. Philips.— C. 



In December, 1726, he was made secretary to 
the Lord Chancellor; and in August, 1733, be- 
came judge of the Prerogative Court. 

After the death of his patron he continued 
some years in Ireland; but at last longing, as it 
seems, for his native country, he returned 
(1748) to London, having doubtless survived 
most of his friends and enemies, and among 
them his dreaded antagonist, Pope. He found 
however the Duke of Newcastle still living, 
and to him he dedicated his poems collected into 
a volume. 

Having purchased an annuity of four hun- 
dred pounds, he now certainly hoped to pass 
some years of life in plenty and tranquillity ; 
but his hope deceived him : he was struck with 
a palsy, and died* June 18, 1749, in his seventy- 
eighth year. 

Of his personal character all that I have 
heard is, that he was eminent for bravery and 
skill in the sword, and that in conversation he 
was solemn and pompous. He had great sensi- 
bility of censure, if judgment may be made by 
a single story which I heard long ago from Mr. 
Ing, a gentleman of great eminence in Stafford- 
shire. " Philips," said he, " was once at table, 
when I asked him, How came thy king of Epi- 
rus to drive oxen, and to say, ' I'm goaded on 
by love ?' After which question he never spoke 
again." 

Of " The Distrest Mother" not much is pre- 
tended to be his own, and therefore it is no sub- 
ject of criticism ; his other two tragedies, I be- 
lieve, are not below mediocrity, nor above it. 
Among the Poems comprised in the late Collec- 
tion, the Letter from Denmark may be justly 
praised ; the Pastorals, which by the writer of 
the " Guardian" were ranked as one of the 
four genuine productions of the rustic muse, 
cannot surely be despicable. That they exhibit 
a mode of life which did not exist, nor ever 
existed, is not to be objected : the supposition of 
such a state is allowed to pastoral. In his 
other poems he cannot be denied the praise of 
lines sometimes elegant ; but he has seldom 
much force or much comprehension. The 
pieces that please best are those which, from 
Pope and Pope's adherents, procured him the 
name of Namby Pamby, the poems of short 
lines, by which he paid his court to all ages and 
characters, from Walpole, the " steerer of the 
realm," to Miss Pulteney in the nursery. The 
numbers are smooth and sprightly, and the dic- 
tion is seldom faulty. They are not loaded with 
much thought, yet, if they had been written by 
Addison, they would have had admirers : little 
things are not valued but when they are done by 
those who can do greater. 

In his translations from Pindar he found the 



* At his house in Hanover-street, and was buried 
in Audley Chanel.— C. 

Tt 



326 



WEST. 



art of reaching all the obscurity of the Theban 
bard, however he may fall below his sublimity ; 
he will be allowed, if he has less fire, to have 
more smoke. 



He has added nothing to English poetry, yet 
at least half his book deserves to be read : per- 
haps he valued most himself that part which the 
critic would reject. 



WEST. 



Gilbert West is one of the writers of whom I 
regret my inability to give a sufficient account ; 
the intelligence which my inquiries have obtain- 
ed is general and scanty. 

He was the son of the Rev. Dr. West ; per- 
haps* him who published " Pindar' at Oxford 
about the beginning of this century. His mother 
was sister to Sir Richard Temple, afterwards 
Lord Cobham. His father, purposing to edu- 
cate him for the church, sent him first to Eton, 
and afterwards to Oxford ; but he was seduced 
to a more airy mode of life, by a commission in 
a troop of horse, procured him by his uncle. 

He continued some time in the army; though 
it is reasonable to suppose that he never sunk 
into a mere soldier, nor ever lost the love, or 
much neglected the pursuit, of learning; and 
afterwards, finding himself more inclined to 
civil employment, he laid down his commission, 
and engaged in business under the Lord Towns- 
hend, then secretary of state, with whom he at- 
tended the king to Hanover. 

His adherence to Lord Townshend ended in 
nothing but a nomination (May 1729) to be 
clerk-extraordinary of the privy-council, which 
produced no immediate profit ; for it only placed 
him in a state of expectation and right of suc- 
cession, and it was very long before a vacancy 
admitted him to profit. 

Soon afterwards he married, and settled him- 
self in a very pleasant house at Wickham, in 
Kent, where he devoted himself to learning and 
to piety. Of his learning the late Collection 
exhibits evidence, which would have been yet 
fuller, if the dissertations which accompany his 
version of Pindar had not been improperly 
omitted. Of his piety the influence has, I hope, 
been extended far by his " Observations on the 
Resurrection," published in 1747, for which the 
university of Oxford created him a doctor of j 
laws by diploma (March 30, 1749) and would 
doubtless have reached yet further, had he lived 
to complete what he had for some time meditat- 
ed, the evidences of the truth of the " New 



* Certainly him. It was published in 1397. — C. 



Testament." Perhaps it may not be without 
effect to tell, that he read the prayers of the 
public liturgy every morning to his family, and 
that on Sunday evening he called his servants 
into the parlour, and read to them first a sermon 
and then prayers. Crashaw is now not the only 
maker of verses to whom may be given the two 
venerable names of poet and saint. 

He was very often visited by Lyttelton and 
Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction 
and debates, used at Wickham to find books and 
quiet, a decent table, and literary conversation. 
There is at Wickham a walk made by Pitt; 
and, what is of far more importance, at Wick- 
ham Lyttelton received that conviction which 
produced his " Dissertation on St. Paul." 

These two illustrious friends had for a while 
listened to the blandishments of infidelity ; and 
when West's book was published, it was bought 
by some who did not know his change of opinion, 
in expectation of new objections against Christi- 
anity; and as infidels do not want malignity, 
they revenged the disappointment by calling him 
a methodist. 

Mr. West's income was not large; and his 
friends endeavoured, but without success, to ob- 
tain an augmentation. It is reported, that the 
education of the young prince was offered to 
him, but that he required a more extensive 
power of superintendance than it was thought 
proper to allow him. 

In time, however, his revenue was improved ; 
he lived to have one of the lucrative clerkships 
of the privy council (1752;) and Mr. Pitt at 
last had it in his power to make him treasurer 
of Chelsea Hospital. 

He was now sufficiently rich; but wealth 
came too late to be long enjoyed ; nor could it 
secure him from the calamities of life ; he lost 
(1755) his only son ; and the year after (March 
26) a stroke of the palsy brought to the grave 
one of the few poets to whom the grave might 
be without its terrors. 

Of his translations I have only compared the 
first Olympic ode with the original, and found 
my expectation surpassed, both by its elegance 
and its exactness. He does not confine himself 



COLLINS. 



327 



to his author's train of stanzas, for he saw that 
the difference of the languages required a differ- 
ent mode of versification. The first strophe is 
eminently happy ; in the second he has a little 
strayed from Pindar's meaning, who says, " if 
thou, my soul, wishest to speak of games, look 
not in the desert sky for a planet hotter than the 
sun ; nor shall we tell of nobler games than those 
of Olympia." He is sometimes too paraphrasti- 
cal. Pindar bestows upon Hiero an epithet, 
which, in one word, signifies delighting in horses ; 
a word which, in the translation, generates these 
lines : 

Hiero's royal brows, wbose care 
Tends the courser's noble breed, 

Pleased to nurse the pregnant mare, 
Pleased to train the youthful steed. 

Pindar says of Pelops, that " he came alone in 
the dark to the White Sea ;" and West, 

Near the billow-beaten side 
Of the foam-besnVer'd main, 
Darkling, and alone, he stcod: 

which however is less exuberant than the for- 
mer passage. 

A work of this kind must, in a minute ex- 
amination, discover many imperfections ; but 
West's version, so far as I have discovered it, 
appears to be the product of great labour and 
great abilities. 

His Institution of the Garter (1742) is written 
with sufficient knowledge of the manners that 
prevailed in the age to which it is referred, and 
with great elegance of diction ; but, for want of 



a process of events, neither knowledge nor ele- 
gance preserves the reader from weariness. 

His Imitations of Spenser are very successfully 
performed, both with respect to the metre, the 
language, and the fiction ; and being engaged at 
once by the excellence of the sentiments, and 
the artifice of the copy, the mind has two 
amusements together. But such compositions 
are not to be reckoned among the great achieve- 
ments of intellect, because their effect is local 
and temporary, they appeal not to reason or pas- 
sion, but to memory, and presuppose an acci- 
dental or artificial state of mind. An imitation 
of Spenser is nothing to a reader, however acute, 
by whom Spenser has never been perused. 
Works of this kind may deserve praise, as proofs 
of great industry, and great nicety of observa- 
tion : but the highest praise, the praise of geni- 
us, they cannot claim. The noblest beauties of 
art are those of which the effect is coextended 
with rational nature, or at least with the whole 
circle of polished life; what is less than this can 
be only pretty, the plaything of fashion, and the 
amusement of a day. 

Theke is in the " Adventurer" a paper of 
verses given to one of the authors as Mr. West's, 
and supposed to have been written by him. It 
should not be concealed, however, that it is 
printed with Mr. Jago's name in Dodsley's 
Collection, and is mentioned as his in a letter of 
Shenstone's. Perhaps West gave it without 
naming the author ; and Hawkesworth, receiv- 
ing it from him, thought it his ; for his he 
thought it, as he told me, and as he tells the 
public. 



COLLINS. 



William Collins was born at Chichester, 
on the twenty-fifth day of December, about 
1720. His father was a hatter of good reputa- 
tion. He was in 1733, as Dr. Warburton has 
kindly informed me, admitted scholar of Win- 
chester College, where he was educated by Dr. 
Burton. His English exercises were better 
than his Latin. 

He first courted the notice of the public by 
some verses to " A Lady Weeping," published 
in " The Gentleman's Magazine." 

In 1740, he stood first in the list of the schol- 
ars to be received in succession at New College, 



but unhappily there was no vacancy. This was 
the original misfortune of his life. He became 
a commoner of Queen's College, probably with 
a scanty maintenance ; but was, in about half a 
year, elected a demy of Magdalen College, where 
he continued till he had taken a bachelor's de- 
gree, and then suddenly left the university ; for 
what reason I know not that he told. 

He now (about 1744) came to London a liter- 
ary adventurer, with many projects in his 
head, and very little money in his pockets. He 
designed many works ; but his great fault was 
irresolution; or the frequent calls of immedi- 



COLLINS. 



ate necessity broke his scheme, and suffered him J 
to pursue no settled purpose. A man doubtful 
of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not 
much disposed to abstracted meditation, or re- 
mote inquiries. He published proposals for a 
history of the Revival of Learning ; and I have 
heard him speak with great kindness of Leo the 
Tenth, and with keen resentment of his taste- 
less successor. But probably not a page of his 
listory was ever written. He planned several 
tragedies, but he only planned them. He wrote 
now and then odes and other poems, and did 
something, however little. 

About this time I fell into his company. His 
appearance was decent and manly; his know- 
ledge considerable, his views extensive, his con- 
versation elegant, and his disposition cheerful. 
By degrees I gained his confidence ; and one day 
was admitted to him when he was immured by 
a bailiff, that was prowling in the street. On 
this occasion recourse was had to the booksellers, 
who, on the credit of a translation of Aristotle's 
Poetics, which he engaged to write with a large 
commentary, advanced as much money as en- 
abled him to escape into the country. He 
showed me the guineas safe in his hand. Soon 
afterwards his uncle, Mr. Martin, a lieutenant- 
colonel, left him about two thousand pounds ; a 
sum which Collins could scarcely think exhaust- 
ible, and which he did not live to exhaust. The 
guineas were then repaid, and the translation 
neglected. 

But man is not bora for happiness. Collins, 
who, while he studied to live, felt no evil but 
poverty, no sooner lived to study, than his life 
was assailed by more dreadful calamities, disease 
and insanity. 

Having formerly written his character,* while 
perhaps it was yet more distinctly impressed 
upon my memory, I shall insert it here. 

" Mr. Collins was a man of extensive litera- 
ture, and of vigorous faculties. He "was ac- 
quainted not only with the learned tongues, but 
with the Italian, French, and Spanish languages. 
He had employed his mind chiefly upon works 
of fiction, and subjects of fancy; and, by in- 
dulging some peculiar habits of thought, was 
eminently delighted with those flights of imagi- 
nation -which pass the bounds of nature, and to 
■which the mind is reconciled only by a passive 
acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved 
fairies, genii, giants, and monsters ; he delight- 
ed to rove through the meanders of enchant- 
ment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden pal- 
aces, to repose by the water-falls of Elysian 
gardens. 

" This was however the character rather of 



* In the " PoeJral Calendar," a collection of 
poems hy Fawkes and Woty, in several volumes, 
1703, &C..— C. 



his inclination than his genius ; the grandeur of 
wildness, and the novelty of extravagance, were 
always desired by him, but not always attained* 
Yet, as diligence is never wholly lost, if his ef- 
forts sometimes caused harshness and obscurity 
they likewise produced in happier moments 
sublimity and splendour. This idea which he 
had formed of excellence led him to oriental fic- 
tions and allegorical imagery, and perhaps, while 
he was intent upon description, he did not suffi- 
ciently cultivate sentiment. His poems are the 
production of a mind not deficient in fire, nor 
unfurnished with knowledge either of books or 
life, but somewhat obstructed in its progress by 
deviation in quest of mistaken beauties. 

" His morals were pure, and his opinions pi- 
ous : in a long continuance of poverty, and long 
habits of dissipation, it cannot be expected that 
any character should be exactly uniform. There 
is a degree of want by which the freedom of 
agency is almost destroyed ; and long association 
with fortuitous companions will at last relax the 
strictness of truth, and abate the fervour of sin- 
cerity. That this man, wise and virtuous as he 
was, passed almost unentangled through the 
snares of life, it would be prejudice and temerity 
to affirm ; but it may be said that at least he 
preserved the source of action unpolluted, that 
his principles were never shaken, that his dis- 
tinctions of right and wrong were never con- 
founded, and that his faults had nothing of ma- 
lignity or design, but proceeded from some un- 
expected pressure, or casual temptation. 

" The latter part of his life cannot be remem- 
bered but with pity and sadness. He languished 
some years under that depression of mind which 
enchains the faculties without destroying them, 
and leaves reason the knowledge of right with- 
out the power of pursuing it. These clouds 
which he perceived gathering on his intellects, 
he endeavoured to disperse by travel, and passed 
into France; but found himself constrained to 
yield to his malady, and returned. He was for 
some time confined in a house of lunatics, and 
afterwards retired to the care of his sister in 
Chichester, where death, in 1756, came to his 
relief. 

" After his return from France, the writer of 
this character paid him a visit at Islington, 
where he was waiting for his sister, whom he 
had directed to meet him : there was then no- 
thing of disorder discernible in his mind by any 
but himself ; but he had withdrawn from study, 
and travelled with no other book than an Eng- 
lish Testament, such as children carry to the 
school : when his friend took it into his hand, 
out of curiosity to see what companion a man of 
letters had chosen, ' I have but one book,' said 
Collins, ' but that is the best.' " 

Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I 
once delighted to converse, and whom T yet re - 
member with tenderness. 



DYER. 



329 



He was visited at Chichester, in his last ill- 
ness, by his learned friends Dr. Warton and his 
brother, to whom he spoke with disapprobation 
of his Oriental Eclogues, as not sufficiently ex- 
pressive of Asiatic manners, and called them his 
Irish Eclogues. He showed them, at the same 
time, an ode inscribed to Mr. John Hume, on 
the superstitions of the Highlands ; which they 
thought superior to his other works, but which 
no search has yet found. * 

His disorder was not alienation of mind, but 
general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency rather 
of his vital than his intellectual powers. What 
he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit ; 
but a few minutes exhausted him, so that he 
was forced to rest upon the couch, till a short 
cessation restored his powers, and he was again 
able to talk with his former vigour. 

The approaches of this dreadful malady he 
began to feel soon after his uncle's death ; and, 
with the usual weakness of men so diseased, 
eagerly snatched that temporary relief with 
which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce. 
But bis health continually declined, and he grew 
more and more burdensome to himself. 

To what I have formerly said of his writings 



may be added, that his diction was often harsh, 
unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. 
He affected the obsolete when it was not worthy 
of revival; and he puts his words out of the 
common order, seeming to think, with some 
later candidates for fame, that not to write prose 
is certainly to write poetry. His lines commonly 
are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with 
clusters of consonants. As men are often es- 
teemed who cannot be loved, so the poetry of 
Collins may sometimes extort praise when it 
gives little pleasure. 

Mr. Collins's first production is added here 
from the " Poetical Calendar." 

TO MISS AURELIA C ft, 

ON HER. WEEPING AT HER SISTER'S WEDDING. 

Cease, fair Aurelia, cease to mourn; 

Lament not Hannah's happy state ; 
You may be happy in your tarn, 

And seize the treasure you regret. 
With love united Hymen stands, 

And sof.ly whispers to your charms, 
" Meet but your lover in my bands, 

You'll find your sister in his arms." 



DYER, 



John Dyer, of whom I have no other account 
to give than his own letters, published with 
Hughes's correspondence, and the notes added 
by the editor, have afforded me, was born in 
1700, the second son of Robert Dyer, of Aber- 
glasney, in Caermarthenshire, a solicitor of great 
capacity and note. 

He passed through Westminster-school under 
the care of Dr. Freind, and was then called 
home to be instructed in his father's profession. 
But his father died soon, and he took no delight 
Sn the study of the law; but, having always 
amused himself with drawing, resolved to turn 
painter, and became pupil to Mr. Riehai"dson, 
an artist then of high reputation, but now bet- 
ter known by his books than by his pictures. 

Having studied awhile under his master, he 
became, as he tells his friend, an itinerant paint- 
er, and wandered about South Wales, and the 
parts adjacent; but he mingled poetry with 



• It is priuted in the late Collection.— R. 



painting, and about 1727, printed " Grongar 
Hill" in Lewis's Miscellany. 

Being, probably, unsatisfied with his own 
proficiency, he, like other painters, travelled to 
Italy ; and coming back in 1740, published 
" The Ruins of Rome." 

If his poem was written soon after his return, 
he did not make much use of his acquisitions in 
painting, whatever they might be : for decline 
of health and love of study determined him to 
the church. He therefore entered into orders ; 
and, it seems, married about the same time a 
lady of the name of Ensor ; " whose grandmo- 
ther," says he, "was a Shakspeare descended from 
a brother of every body's Shakspeare;" by her, 
in 1756, he had a son and three daughters living. 

His ecclesiastical provision was for a long 
time but slender. His first patron, Mr. Har- 
per, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp, in Leicester- 
shire, of eighty pounds a year, on which he lived 
ten years, and then exchanged it for Belchford, 
in Lincolnshire, of seventy-five. His condition 
now began to mend. In 1751, Sir John Heath- 



330 



SHENSTONE. 



cote gave him Coningsby, of one hundred and 
forty pounds a year; and in 1755, the Chancel- 
lor added Kirkby, of one hundred and ten. He 
complains that the repair of the house at Con- 
ingsby, and other expenses, took away the pro- 
fit. In 1757, he published " The Fleece," his 
greatest poetical work, of which I will not sup- 
press a ludicrous story. Dodsley, the booksel- 
ler, was one day mentioning it to a critical visi- 
tor, with more expectation of success than the 
other could easily admit. In the conversation 
the Author's age was asked, and being repre- 
sented as advanced in life, " He will," said the 
critic, " be buried in woollen." 

He did not indeed long survive that publica- 
tion, nor long enjoy the increase of his prefer- 
ments ; for in* 1758 he died. 

Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity suffi- 
cient to require an elaborate criticism. " Gron- 
gar Hill" is the happiest of his productions: it 
is not indeed very accurately written ; but the 
scenes which it displays are so pleasing, the 
images which they raise are so welcome to the 
mind, and the reflections of the writer so con- 
sonant to the general sense or experience of 
mankind, that when it is once read, it will be 
read again. 

The idea of " The Ruins of Rome" strikes 
more, but pleases less, and the title raises 
greater expectation than the performance gra- 
tifies. Some passages, however, are conceived 
with the mind of a poet; as when, in the 
neighbourhood of dilapidating edifices, he says. 



—The pilgrim oft 
At dead of night, 'mid his orison, hears 
Aghast the voice of time, disparting towers, 
Tumbling all precipitate, down dash'd, 
Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon. 

Of " The Fleece," which never became po- 
pular, and is now universally neglected, I can 
say little that is likely to recall it to attention. 
The wool-comber and the poet appear to me 
such discordant natures, that an attempt to 
bring them together is to couple the serpent with 
the fowl. When Dyer, whose mind was not 
unpoetical, has done his utmost, by interesting 
his reader in our native commodity, by inter- 
spersing rural imagery, and incidental digres- 
sions, by clothing small images in great words, 
and by all the writer's arts of delusion, the 
meanness naturally adhering, and the irreve- 
rence habitually annexed to trade and manufac- 
ture, sink him under insuperable oppression ; 
and the disgust which blank verse, encumbering 
and encumbered, superadds to an unpleasing 
subject, soon repels the reader, however willing 
to be pleased. 

Let me however honestly report whatever 
may counterbalance this weight of censure. I 
have been told, that Akenside, who, upon a 
poetical question, has a right to be heard, said, 
" That he would regulate his opinion of the 
reigning taste by the fate of Dyer's * Fleece;' 
for, if that were ill-received, he should not 
think it any longer reasonable to expect fame 
from excellence." 



SHENSTONE* 



William Shenstone, the son of Thomas Shen- 
stone and Anne Pen, was born in November, 
17M, at the Leasowes in Hales- Owen, one of 
those insulated districts which, in the division 
of the kingdom, was appended, for some reason 
not now discoverable, to a distant county ; and 
which, though surrounded by Warwickshire 
and Worcestershire, belongs to Shropshire, 
though perhaps thirty miles distant from any 
other part of it. 

He learned to read of an old dame, whom his 
poem of " The School- Mistress" has delivered 
to posterity; and soon received such delight 
from books, that he was always calling for fresh 
entertainment, and expected that, when any of 



* July 24th.— C. 



the family went to market, a new book should 
be brought him, which, when it came, was in 
fondness carried to bed and laid by him. It is 
said, that when his request had been neglected, 
his mother wrapt up a piece of wood of the 
same form, and pacified him for the night. 

As he grew older, he went for a while to the 
Grammar-school, in Hales- Owen, and was 
placed afterwards with Mr. Crumpton, an 
eminent schoolmaster at Solihul, where he dis- 
tinguished himself by the quickness of his 
progress. 

When he was young (June, 1724) he was de- 
prived of his father, and soon after (August, 
1726) of his grandfather, and was, with his 
brother, who died afterwards unmarried, left 
to the care of his grandmother, who managed 
the estate. 



SHE N STONE. 



331 



From school he was sent in 1732 to Pembroke 
College, in Oxford, a society which for half a 
century has been eminent for English poetry 
and elegant literature. Here it appears that he 
found delight and advantage ; for he continued 
his name in the book ten years, though he took 
no degree. After the first four years, he put on 
the civilian's gown, but without showing any 
intention to engage in the profession. 

About the time when he went to Oxford, the 
death of his grandmother devolved his affairs to 
the care of the Reverend Mr. Dolman, of 
Brome, in Staffordshire, whose attention he al- 
ways mentioned with gratitude. 

At Oxford he employed himself upon English 
poetry ; and in 1737 published a small miscel- 
lany, without his name. 

He then for a time wandered about, to ac- 
quaint himself with life, and Avas sometimes at 
London, sometimes at Bath, or any other place 
of public resort ; but he did not forget his poetry. 
He published in 1 741 his " Judgment of Her- 
cules," addressed to Mr. Lyttelton, whose in- 
terest he supported Avith great Avarmth at an 
election : this Avas next year followed by " The 
School- Mistress. " 

Mr. Dolman, to whose care he was indebted 
for his ease and leisure, died in 1745, and the 
care of his own fortune now fell upon him. He 
tried to escape it awhile, and lived at his house 
with his tenants, who were distantly related : 
but, finding that imperfect possession inconve- 
nient, he took the whole estate into his own 
hands, more to the improvement of its beauty, 
than the increase of its produce. 

Noav was excited his delight in rural plea- 
sures, and his ambition of rural elegance : he 
began from this time to point his prospects, to 
diversify his surface, to entangle his Avalks, and 
to wind his waters; which he did Avith such 
judgment and such fancy, as made his little do- 
main the envy of the great, and the admiration 
of the skilful ; a place to be visited by travellers, 
and copied by designers. Whether to plant a 
Avalk in undulating curves, and to place a bench 
at every turn where there is an object to catch 
the view ; to make water run where it will be 
heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen ; to 
leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, 
and to thicken the plantation where there is 
something to be hidden ; demand any great 
powers of mind, I will not inquire ; perhaps a 
surly and sullen spectator may think such per- 
formances rather the sport than the business of 
human reason. But it must be at least con- 
fessed, that to embellish the form of Nature is 
^n innocent amusement; and some praise must 
be allowed, by the most supercilious observer, to 
him Avho does best what such multitudes are 
contending to do well. 

This praise was the praise of Shenstone ; but, 
like all other modes of felicity, it Avas not en- 



joyed Avithout its abatements. Lyttelton Avaa 
his neighbour and his rival, Avhose empire, spa- 
cious and opulent, looked with disdain on the 
petty state that appeared behind it. For a while 
the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their 
acquaintance of the little felloAV that was try- 
ing to make himself admired ; but when by de- 
grees the LeasoAves forced themselves into no- 
tice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which 
they could not suppress, by conducting their 
visitants perversely to inconvenient points of 
vieAv, and introducing them at the wrong end 
of a Avalk to detect a deception; injuries of 
Avhich Shenstone Avould heavily complain. 
Where there is emulation there will be vanity; 
and Avhere there is vanity there will be folly.* 

The pleasure of Shenstone was all in his eye ; 
he valued what he valued merely for its Jooks; 
nothing raised his indignation more than to ask 
if there were any fishes in his water. 

His house was mean, and he did not improve 
it ; his care was of his grounds. When he 
came home from his walks, he might find his 
floors flooded by a shower through the broken 
roof; but could spare no money for its re- 
paration. 

In time his expenses brought clamours about 
him, that overpoAvered the lamb's bleat and the 
linnet's song ; and his groves were haunted by 
beings very different from fauns and fairies.f 
He spent his estate in adorning it, and his 
death was probably hastened by his anxieties. 



* This charge against the Lyttelton family has 
been denied with some degree of warmth by Mr. 
Potter, and since by Mr. Graves. The latter says, 
" The truth of the case, I believe, was, that the Lyt- 
telton family went so frequently with their family 
to the Leasowes, that -they were unwilling to break 
in upon Mr. Shenstone's retirement on every occa- 
sion, and therefore often went to the principal points 
of view without waiting for any one to conduct 
them regularly through the whole walks. Of this 
Mr. Shenstone would sometimes peevishly complain : 
though, I am persuaded, he never really suspected 
any ill-natured intention in his worthy and much- 
valued neighbours." — E. 

t Mr. Graves, however, expresses his belief that 
this is a groundless surmise. " Mr. Shenstone," he 
adds, " was too much respected in the neighbour- 
hood to be treated with rudeness ; and though his 
works, (frugally as they were managed,) "added to 
his manner of living, must necessarily have made 
him exceed his income, and, of course, he might 
sometimes be distressed for money, yet he had too 
much spirit to expose himself to insults from trifling 
sums, and guarded against any great distress, by 
anticipating a few hundreds : which his estate could 
very well bear, as appeared by what remained to his 
executors after the payment of his debts, and his 
legacies to his friends, an d annuities of thirty pounds 
a year to one servant, and six pounds to another ; 
for his will was dictated with equal justice and ge- 
nerosity."— -R. 



332 



SHENSTONE. 



He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. It 
is said, that, if he had lived a little longer, he 
■would have been assisted by a pension : such 
bounty could not have been ever more properly 
bestowed ; but that it was ever asked is not cer- 
tain ; it is too certain that it never -was enjoyed. 

He died at the Leasowes, of a putrid fever, 
about five on Friday morning, February 11, 
1763 ; and was buried by the side of his brother 
in the churchyard of Hales- Owen. 

He was never married, though he might have 
obtained the lady, whoever she was, to whom 
his " Pastoral Ballad" was addressed. He is 
represented by his friend Dodsley as a man of 
great tenderness and generosity, kind to all that 
were within his influence ; but, if once offended, 
not easily appeased : inattentive to economy, and 
careless of his expenses. Jn his person he was 
larger than the middle size, with something 
clumsy in his form ; very negligent of his clothes, 
and remarkable for wearing his grey hair in a 
particular manner ; for he held that the fashion 
was no rule of dress, and that every man was to 
suit his appearance to his natural form.* 

His mind was not very comprehensive, nor 
his curiosity active ; he had no value for those 
parts of knowledge which he had not himself 
cultivated. 

His life was unstained by any crime ; the 
Elegy on Jesse, which has been supposed to relate 
an unfortunate and criminal amour of his own, 
was known by his friends to have been suggest- 
ed by the story of Miss Godfrey, in Richardson's 
11 Pamela." 

What Gray thought of his character, from 
the perusal of his letters, was this : — 

" I have read too an octavo volume of Shen- 
stone's Letters. Poor man ! he was always 
wishing for money, for fame, and other distinc- 
tions; and his whole philosophy consisted in 
living against his will in retirement, and in a 
place which his taste had adorned, but which he 
only enjoyed when people of note came to see 
and commend it ; his correspondence is about 
nothing else but this place and his own writings, 
with two or three neighbouring clergymen, who 
wrote verses too." 

His poems consist of elegies, odes, and bal- 
lads, humorous sallies, and moral pieces. 

His conception of an elegy he has in his pre- 
face very judiciously and discriminately explain- 
ed. It is, according to his account, the effusion 
of a contemplative mind, sometimes plaintive, 
and always serious, and therefore superior to 
the glitter of slight ornaments. His composi- 



* " These," says Mr. Graves, * were not precisely 
his sentiments, though he thought right enough, that 
every one should, in some degree, consult his par- 
ticular shape and complexion in adjusting his dress; 
and that no fashion ought to sanctify what was un- 
graceful, absurd, or really deformed." 



tions suit not ill to this description. His topics 
of praise are the domestic virtues, and his 
thoughts are pure and simple; but, wanting 
combination, they want variety. The peace of 
solitude, the innocence of inactivity, and the 
unenvied security of an humble station, can fill 
but a few pages. That of which the essence is 
uniformity will be soon described. His elegies 
have therefore too much resemblance of each 
other. 

The lines are sometimes such as elegy requires, 
smooth and easy ; but to this praise his claim is 
not constant ; his diction is often harsh, im- 
proper, and affected ; his words ill-coined, or ill-. 
chosen ; and his phrase unskilfully inverted. 

The lyric poems are almost all of the light 
and airy kind, such as trip lightly and nimbly 
along, without the load of any weighty mean- 
ing. From these, however, Rural Elegance has 
some right to be excepted. I once heard it 
praised by a very learned lady ; and though the 
lines are irregular, and the thoughts diffused 
with too much verbosity, yet it cannot be denied 
to contain both philosophical argument and 
poetical spirit. 

Of the rest I cannot think any excellent: 
" The Skylark" pleases me best, which has, 
however, more of the epigram than of the ode. 

But the four parts of his " Pastoral Ballad" 
demand particular notice. I cannot but regret 
that it is pastoral; an intelligent reader, ac- 
quainted with the scenes of real life, sickens at 
the mention of the crook, the pipe, the sheep, and 
the kids, which it is not necessary to bring for- 
ward to notice, for the poet's art is selection, 
and he ought to show the beauties without the 
grossness of the country life. His stanza seems 
to have been chosen in imitation of Rowe's 
" Despairing Shepherd." 

In the first part are two passages, to which if 
any mind denies its sympathy, it has no ac- 
quaintance with love or nature. 

I prized every hour that went by, 
Beyond all that had pleased me before ; 

But now they are past, and I sigh, 
And I grieve that I prized them no more. 

When forced the fair nymph to forego, 

What anguish I felt in my heart ! 
Yet I thought (but it might not be so) 

'Twas with pain that she saw me depart. 

She gazed, as I slowly withdrew, 

My path I could hardly discern ; 
So sweetly she bade me adieu, 

I thought that she bade me return. 

In the second this passage has its prettiness, 
though it be not equal to the former : — 

I have found out a gift for my fair ; 

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed) 
But let me that plunder forbear, 

She will say 'twas a barbarous deed; 



YOUNG. 



333 



For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd, 
Who could rob a poor bird of its young ; 

And I loved her the more when I heard 
Such tenderness fall from her tongue. 

In the third he mentions the common-places 
of amorous poetry with some address : — 

m 

'Tis his with mock-passions to glow ! 

'Tis his in smooth tales to unfold, 
How her face is as bright as the snow, 

And her bosom, be sure, is as cold ; 

How the nightingales labour the strain, 
With the notes of this charmer to vie ; 

How they vary their accents in vain, 
Repine at her triumphs, and die. 



In the fourth I find nothing 
natural strain of Hope :— 



better than this 



Alas ! from the day that we met, 
What hope of an end to my woes, 

When I cannot endure to forget 
The glance that undid my repose ? 

Yet Time may diminish the pain : 
The flower, and the shrub, and the tree, 

Which 1 rear'd for her pleasure in vain, 
In time may have comfort for me. 

His Levities are by their title exempted from 
the severities of criticism; yet it may he re- 



marked in a few words, that his humour is 
sometimes gross, and seldom sprightly. 

Of the moral poems, the first is' " The Choice 
of Hercules," from Xenophon. The numbers 
are smooth, the diction elegant, and the thoughts 
just ; hut something of vigour is still to he 
wished, which it might have had hy brevity and 
compression. His " Fate of Delicacy" has an 
air of gayety, but not a very pointed and gene- 
ral moral. His blank verses, those that can 
read them may probably find to he like the 
blank verses of his neighbours. " Love and 
Honour" is derived from the old ballad, " Did 
you not hear of a Spanish Lady?" — I wish it 
well enough to wish it were in rhyme. 

" The School Mistress," of which I know 
not what claim it has to stand among the moral 
works, is surely the most pleasant of Shen- 
stone's performances. The adoption of a parti- 
cular style, in light and short compositions, con- 
tributes much to the increase of pleasure ; we 
are entertained at once with two imitations, of 
nature in the sentiments, of the original author 
in the style; and between them the mind is 
kept in perpetual employment. 

The general recommendation of Shenstone is 
easiness and simplicity; his general defect is 
want of comprehension and variety. Had his 
mind been better stored with knowledge, whe- 
ther he could have been great, I know not ; he 
could certainly have been agreeable. 



YOUNG. 



The following life was written, at my request, 
by a gentleman who had better information than 
I could easily have obtained ; and the public 
will perhaps wish that I had solicited and ob- 
tained more such favours from him. * 

" Dear Sir, 

" In consequence of our different conversa- 
tions about authentic materials for the life of 
Young, I send you the following detail. 

" Of great men, something must always be 
said to gratify curiosity. Of the illustrious 
Author of the " Night Thoughts" much has 
been told of which there never could have been 
proofs ; and little care appears to have been 



* Fee Ger+, Map-, vol. b:x. p. 225.— N. 



taken to tell that, of which proofs, with little 
trouble, might have been procured." 

Edward Young was born at Upham, near 
Winchester, in June, 1681. He was the son of 
Edward Young, at that time fellow of Winches- 
ter College and l'ector of Upham ; who was the 
son of Jo. Young, of Woodhay, in Berkshire, 
styled by Wood, gentleman. In September, 
1682, the Poet's father was collated to the pre- 
bend of Gillingham Minor, in the church of Sa- 
rum, by Bishop Ward. When Ward's facul- 
ties were impaired through age, his duties were 
necessarily performed by others. We learn from 
Wood, that at a visitation of Sprat's, July the 
12th, 1686, the prebendary preached a Latin 
sermon, afterwards published, witli which the 
bishop was so pleased, that he told the chapter 
U a 



354 



YOUNG. 



he was concerned to find the preacher had one 
of the worst prebends in their church. Some 
time after this, in consequence of his merit and 
reputation, or of the interest of Lord Bradford, 
to whom, in 1702, he dedicated two volumes of 
sermons, he was appointed chaplain to King 
William and Queen Mary, and preferred to the 
deanery of Sarum. Jacob, who wrote in 1720, 
says, " he was chaplain and clerk of the closet 
to the late queen, who honoured him by stand- 
ing godmother to the Poet." His fellowship 
of Winchester he resigned in favour of a gen- 
tleman of the name of Karris, who married his 
only daughter. The Dean died at Sarum, after 
a short illness, in 1705, in the sixty-third year 
of his age. On the Sunday after his decease 
Bishop Burnet preached at the cathedral, and 
began his sermon with saying, " Death has 
been of late walking round us, and making 
breach upon breach upon us, and has now car- 
ried away the head of this body Avith a stroke ; 
so that he, whom you saw a week ago distri- 
buting the holy mysteries, is now laid in the 
dust. But he still lives in the many excellent 
directions he has left us, both how to live and 
how to die." 

The Dean placed his son upon the foundation 
at Winchester College, where he had himself 
been educated. At this school Edward Young 
remained till the election after his eighteenth 
birth-day, the period at which those upon the 
foundation are superannuated. Whether he 
did not betray his abilities early in life, or his 
masters had not skill enough to discover in their 
pupil any marks of genius for which he merited 
reward, or no vacancy at Oxford offered them 
an opportunity to bestow upon him the reward 
provided for merit by William of Wykeham ; 
certain it is, that to an Oxford fellowship our 
Poet did not succeed. By chance, or by choice, 
New College cannot claim the honour of num- 
bering among its fellows him who wrote the 
" Night Thoughts." 

On the ISth of October, 1703, he was entered 
an independent member of -New College, that 
he might live at little expense in the warden's 
lodgings, who was a particular friend of his 
father's, till he should be qualified to stand for a 
fellowship at All Souls. In a few months the 
warden of New College died. He then re- 
moved to Corpus College. The president of 
this society, from regard also for his father, in- 
vited him thither, in order to lessen his acade- 
mical expenses. In 1708, he was nominated to 
a law- fellow ship at All Souls by Archbishop 
Tenison, into whose hands it came by devolu- 
tion. Such repeated patronage, while it justi- 
fies Eurnet's praise of the father, reflects credit 
on the conduct of the son : the manner in which 
it was exerted rooms to prove that the father 
did not leave behind much wealth. 

On the 23d of April, 1714, Young took his j 



degree of bachelor of civil laws, and his doctor 'a 
degree on the 10th of June, 1719. 

Soon after he went to Oxford, he discovered, 
it is said, an inclination for pupils. Whether 
he ever commenced tutor is not known. None 
has hitherto boasted to have received his acade- 
mical instruction from the author of the " Night 
Thoughts." 

It is probable that his College was proud of 
him no less as a scholar than as a poet; for, in 
1716, when the foundation of the Codrington 
Library was laid, two years after he had taken 
his bachelor's degree, Young was appointed to 
speak the Latin oration. This is at least parti- 
cular for being dedicated in English " To the 
Ladies of the Codrington Family." To these 
ladies he says, that " he was unavoidably flung 
into a singularity, by being obliged to write an 
epistle dedicatory void of common-place, and 
such a one was never published before by any 
author whatever; that this practice absolved 
them from any obligation of reading what was 
presented to them ; and that the bookseller ap- 
proved of it, because it would make people stare, 
was absurd enough, and perfectly right." 

Of this oration there is no appearance in his 
own edition of his works ; and prefixed to an 
edition by Curll and Tonson, 1741, in a letter 
from Young to Curll, if we may credit Curll, 
dated December the 9th, 1739, wherein he says, 
that he has not leisure to review what he for- 
merly wrote, and adds, " I have not the 
' Epistle to Lord Lansdowne.' If you will 
take "my advice, I would have you omit that, 
and the Oration on Codrington. I think the 
collection will sell better without them." 

There are who relate, that, when first Young 
found himself independent, and his own master 
at All Souls, he was not the ornament to reli- 
gion and morality which he afterwards became. 

The authority of his father, indeed, had 
ceased, some time before, by his death ; and 
Young was certainly not ashamed to be patron- 
ised by the infamous Wharton. But Wharton 
befriended in Young, perhaps, the poet, and par- 
ticularly the tragedian. If virtuous authors 
must be patronised only by virtuous peers, who 
shall point them out ? 

Yet Pope is said by Ruff head to have told 
Warburton, that " Young had much of a sub- 
lime genius, though without common sense ; so 
that his genius, having no guide, was perpetual- 
ly liable to degenerate into bombast. This made 
him pass a foolish youth, the sport of peers and 
poets, but his having a very good heart enabled 
him to support the clerical character when he 
assumed it, first with decency, and afterwards 
with honour." 

They avIio think ill of Young's morality in 
the early part of his life, may perhaps be wrong; 
but Tinclal could not err in his opinion of 
Young's warmth and ability in the cause of re- 



YOUNG. 



335 



ligion. Tindal used to spend much of his time 
at All Souls. " The other boys," said the 
Atheist, " I can always answer, because I al- 
ways know wheuce they have their arguments, 
which I have read a hundred times ; but that 
fellow Young is continually pestering me with 
something of his own."* 

After all, Tindal and the censurers of Young 
may be reconcileable. Young might, for two 
or three years, have tried that kind of life, in 
which his natural principles would not suffer 
him to wallow long. If this were so, he has 
left behind him not only his evidence in favour 
of virtue, but the potent testimony of experience 
• against vice. 

We shall soon see that one of his earliest pro- 
ductions was more serious than what comes 
from the generality of unfledged poets. 

Young perhaps ascribed the good fortune of 
Addison to the " Poem to his Majesty," pre- 
sented, with a copy of verses, to Somers ; and 
hoped that he also might soar to wealth and 
honour on wings of the same kind. His first 
poetical flight was when Queen Anne called up 
to the House of Lords the sons of the Earls of 
Northampton and Aylesbury, and added, in one 
day, ten others to the number of peers. In 
order to reconcile the people to one, at least, of 
the new lords, he published, in 1712, " An 
Epistle to the Right Honourable George Lord 
Lansdowne." In this composition the Poet 
pours out his panegyric with the extravagance 
of a young man, who thinks his present stock of 
wealth will never be exhausted. 

The poem seems intended also to reconcile the 
public to the late peace. This is endeavoured to 
be done by showing that men are slain in war, 
and that in peace " harvests wave, and Com- 
merce swells her sail." If this be humanity, 
for which he meant it ; is it politics? Another 
purpose of this Epistle appears to have been, to 
prepare the public for the reception of some tra- 
gedy he might have in hand. His Lordship's 
patronage, he says, will not let him " repent his 
passion for the stage;" and the particular praise 
bestowed on " Othello" and " Oroonoko" looks 
as if some such character as Zanga was even 
then in contemplation. The affectionate men- 
tion of the death of his friend Harrison, of New 
College, at the close of this poem, is an instance 
of Young's art, which displayed itself so won- 
derfully some time afterwards in the " Night 



* As my great friend is now become the subject of 
iography, it should be told, that, every time I called 
lpon Johnson during the time I was employed in 
ollecting materials for this life and putting it to- 
gether, be never suffered me to depart without some 
such farewell as this: " Don't forget that rascal Tin- 
dal, Sir. Be sure to hang up the Atheist." Alluding 
to this anecdote, which Johnson bad mentioned to 



Thoughts," of making the public a party in his 
private sorrow. 

Should justice call upon you to censure this 
poem, it ought at least to be remembered that 
he did not insert it in his works ; and that in 
the letter to Curll, as we have seen, he advises 
its omission. The booksellers, in the late body 
of English Poetry, should have distinguished 
what was deliberately rejected by the respective 
authors.* This I shall be careful to do with 
regard to Young. " I think," says he, " the 
following pieces in four volumes to be the most 
excusable of all that I have written ; and I wish 
less apology was needful for these. As there is 
no recalling what is got abroad, the pieces here 
republished I have revised and corrected, and 
rendered them as jwrdonable as it was in my 
power to do." 

Shall the gates of repentance be shut only 
against literary sinners? 

When Addison published " Cato" in 1713, 
Young had the honour of prefixing to it a re- 
commendatory copy of verses. This is one of 
the pieces which the Author of the " Night 
Thoughts" did not republish. 

On the appearance of his Poem on the Last 
Day, Addison did not return Young's compli- 
ment; but " The Englishman" of October 29, 
1713, which was probably written by Addison, 
speaks handsomely of this poem. " The Last 
Day" was published soon after the peace. The 
vice-chancellor's imprimatur, for ic was printed 
at Oxford, is dated March the 19th, 1713. 
From the exordium, Young appears to have 
spent some time on the composition of it. While 
other bards " with Britain's hero set their souls 
on fire," he draws, he says, a deeper scene. 
Marlborough had been considered by Britain as 
her hero; but, when the " Last Day" was pub- 
lished, female cabal had blasted for a time the 
laurels of Blenheim. This serious poem was 
finished by Young as early as 1710, before he 
was thirty, for part of it is printed in the 
" Tatler."f It was inscribed to the Queen, in 
a dedication, which, for some reason, he did not 
admit into his works. It tells her, that his only 
title to the great honour he now does himself, is 
the obligation which he formerly received from 
her royal indulgence. 

Of this obligation nothing is now known, 
unless he alluded to her being his godmother. 
He is said indeed to have been engaged at a set> 
tied stipend as a writer for the court. In 
Swift's " Rhapsody on Poetry" are these lines, 
speaking of the court- 
Whence Gay was banish'd in disgrace, 
Where Pope will never show his face, 



" Dr. Johnson, in many cases, thought and directed 
differently, particularly in Young's Works. — J. N. 

t Not in the " Tatler," but in the Guardian," May 
9, 1713.— C 



$36 



YOUNG. 



Where Y— must torture his invention 
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension. 

That Y— means Young seems clear from four 
Other lines in the same poem ; 

Attend, ye Popes and Youngs and Gays 
And tune your harps and strew your bays ; 
Your panegyrics here provide ; 
You cannot err on flattery's side. 

Yet who shall say with certainty, that Young 
was a pensioner? In all modern periods of 
this country, have not the writers on one side 
been regularly called hirelings, and on the other 
patriots ? 

Of the dedication the complexion is clearly 
political. It speaks in the highest terms of the 
late peace ; it gives her Majesty praise indeed 
for her victories, but says, that the Author is 
more pleased to see her rise from this lower 
world, soaring above the clouds, passing the 
first and second heavens, and leaving the fixed 
stars behind her ; nor will he lose her there, he 
says, but keep her still in view through the 
boundless spaces on the other side of creation, 
in her journey towards eternal bliss, till he be- 
holds the heaven of heavens open, and angels re- 
ceiving and conveying her still onward from 
the stretch of his imagination, which tires in 
her pursuit, and falls back again to earth. 

The Queen was soon called away from this 
lower world, to a place where human praise or 
human flattery, even less general than this, are 
of little consequence. If Young thought the 
dedication contained only the praise of truth, he 
should not have omitted it in his works. Was 
he conscious of the exaggeration of party? 
Then he should not have written it. The poem 
itself is not without a glance towards politics, 
notwithstanding the subject. The cry that the 
church was in danger had not yet subsided. 
The " Last Day," written by a layman, was 
much approved by the ministry and their 
friends. 

Before the Queen's death, " The Force of 
Religion, or Vanquished Leve," was sent into 
the world. This poem is founded on the exe- 
cution of Lady Jane Grey, and her husband, 
Lord Guildford, 1554, a story chosen for the 
subject of a tragedy by Edmund Smith and 
wrought into a tragedy by Rowe. The dedica- 
tion of it to the Countess of Salisbury does not 
appear in his own edition. He hopes it may be 
some excuse for his presumption, that the story 
could not have been read without thoughts of 
the Countess of Salisbury, though it had been 
dedicated to another. " To behold," he pro- 
ceeds, " a person only virtuous, stirs in us a 
prudent regret ; to behold a person only amiable 
to the sight, warms us with a religious indigna- 
tion; but to turn our eyes to a Countess of Sa- 
lisbury > gives us pleasure and improvement; it 



works a sort of miracle, occasions the bias of 
our nature to fall off from sin, and makes our 
very senses and affections converts to our reli- 
gion, and promoters of our duty." His flattery 
was as ready for the other sex as for ours, and 
was at least as well adapted. 

August the 27th, 1714, Pope writes to his 
friend Jervas, that he is just arrived from Ox- 
ford ; that every one is much concerned for the 
Queen's death, but that no panegyrics are ready 
yet for the King. Nothing like friendship had 
yet taken place between Pope and Young ; for, 
soon after the event which Pope mentions, 
Young published a poem on the Queen's death, 
and his Majesty's accession to the throne. . It 
is inscribed to Addison, then secretary to the 
lords justices. Whatever were the obligations 
which he had formerly received from Anne, 
the Poet appears to aim at something of the 
same sort from George. Of the poem the in- 
tention seems to have been, to show that he had 
the same extravagant strain of praise for a 
King as for a queen. To discover, at the very 
onset of a foreigner's reign, that the gods bless 
his new subjects in such a king, is something 
more than praise. Neither was this deemed 
one of his excusable pieces. We do not find it 
in his works. 

Young's father had been well acquainted with 
Lady Anne Wharton, the first wife of Thomas 
Wharton, Esq. afterwards Marquis of Whar- 
ton; a lady celebrated for her poetical talents 
by Burnet and by Waller 

To the Dean of Sarum's visitation sermon, 
already mentioned, were added some verses " by 
that excellent poetess Mrs. Anne Wharton," 
upon its being translated into English, at the 
instance of Waller, by Atwood. Wharton, 
after he became ennobled, did not drop the son 
of his old friend. In him, during the short 
time he lived, Young found a patron, and in his 
dissolute descendant a friend and a companion. 
The Marquis died in April, 1715. In the be- 
ginning of the next year the young Marquis set 
out upon his travels, from which he returned 
in about a twelvemonth. The beginning of 
1717 carried him to Ireland ; where, says the 
Biographia, " on the score of his extraordinary 
qualities, he had the honour done him of being 
admitted, though under age, to take his seat 
in the House of Lords." 

With this unhappy character, it is not unlikely 
that Young went to Ireland. From his letter 
to Puchardson on " Original Composition," it 
is clear he was, at some period of his life, in 
that country. " I remember," says he, in that 
letter, speaking of Swift, " as I and others 
were taking with him an evening walk, about 
a mile out of Dublin, he stopped short; we 
passed on ; but perceiving he did not follow us, 
I went back and found him fixed as a statin-, 
and earnestly gazing upward at a noble elm, 



Y O U N G 



337 



which in its uppermost branches was much 
withered and decayed. Pointing at it, he said, 
< I shall be like that tree, I shall die at top.' " 
Is it not probable that this visit to Ireland was 
paid when he had an opportunity of going thi- 
ther with his avowed friend and patron ? 

From " The Englishman" it appears that a 
tragedy by Young was in the theatre so early as 
1713. Yet " Busiris" was not brought upon 
Drury-lane stage till 1719. It was inscribed to 
the Duke of Newcastle, " because the late in- 
stances he had received of his Grace's undeserved 
and uncommon favour, in an affair of some con- 
sequence, foreign to the theatre, had taken from 
him the privilege of choosing a patron. " The 
dedication he afterwards suppressed. 

" Busiris" was followed in the year 1731 by 
" The Revenge." He dedicated this famous 
tragedy to the Duke of Wharton. " Your 
Grace," says the dedication, " has been pleased 
to make yourself accessary to the following 
scenes, not only by suggesting the most beauti- 
ful incident in them, but by making all possible 
provision for the success of the whole." 

That his Grace should have suggested the in- 
cident to which he alludes, whatever that inci- 
dent might have been, is not unlikely. The last 
mental exertion of the superannuated young 
man, in his quarters at Lerida, in Spain, was 
some scenes of a tragedy on the story of Mary 
Queen of Scots. 

Dryden dedicated " Marriage-a-la-Mode" to 
Wharton's infamous relation Rochester, whom 
he acknowledges not only as the defender of his 
poetry, but as the promoter of his fortune. 
Young concludes his address to Whai'ton thus — 
" My present fortune is his bounty, and my fu- 
ture his care, which I will venture to say will 
be always remembered to his honour, since he, 
I know, intended his generosity as an encour- 
agement to merit, though, through his very par- 
donable partiality to one who bears him, so sin- 
cere a duty and respect, I happened to receive 
the benefit of it." That he ever had such a pa- 
tron as Wharton, Young took all the pains in 
his power to conceal from the world, by exclud- 
ing this dedication from his works. He should 
have remembered that he at the same time con- 
cealed his obligation to Wharton for the most 
beautiful incident in what is surely not his least 
beautiful composition. The passage just quoted 
is, in a poem afterwards addressed to Walpole, 
literally copied : 

Be this thy partial smile from censure free ! 
'Twas meant for merit, though it fell on me. 

While Young, who, in his " Love of Fame," 
complains grievously how often " dedications 
wash an iEthiop white," was painting an ami- 
able Duke of Wharton in perishable prose, Pope 
was, perhaps, beginning to describe the " scorn 
and wonder of his days" in lasting verse. 



To the patronage of such a character, had 
Young studied men as much as Pope, he would 
have known how little to have trusted. Young, 
however, was certainly indebted to it for some- 
thing material ; and the Duke's regard for 
Young, added to his " lust of praise," procured 
to All Souls College a donation, which was not 
forgotten by the poet when he dedicated " The 
Revenge." 

It will surprise you to see me cite second At- 
kins, Case 136, Stiles versus the Attorney Gene» 
ral, March 14, 1740, as authority for the life of 
a poet. But biographers do not always find 
such certain guides as the oaths of the persons 
whom they record. Chancellor Hardwicke waa 
to determine whether two annuities, granted by 
the Duke of Wharton to Young, were for legal 
considerations. One was dated the 24th of March, 
1719, and accounted for his Grace's bounty in a 
style princely and commendable, if not legal— 
" considering that the public good is advanced 
by the encouragement of learning and the polite 
arts, and being pleased therein with the attempts 
of Dr. Young, in consideration thereof, and of 
the love I bear him," &c. The other was dated 
the 10th of July, 1722. 

Young, on his examination, swore that he 
quitted the Exeter family, and refused an an- 
nuity of one hundred pounds, which had been 
offered him for life if he would continue tutor 
to Lord Burleigh, upon the pressing solicita- 
tions of the Duke of Wharton, and his Grace's 
assurances of providing for him in a much 
more ample manner. It also appeared that the 
Duke had given him a bond for six hundred 
pounds, dated the 15th of March, 1721, in con- 
sideration of his taking several journeys, and 
being at great expenses, in order to be chosen 
member of the House of Commons, at the 
Duke's desire, and in consideration of his not 
taking two livings of two hundred pounds and 
four hundred pounds, in the gift of All Souls 
College, on his Grace's promises of serving and 
advancing him in the world. 

Of his adventures in the Exeter family I am 
unable to give any account. The attempt to get 
into parliament was at Cirencester, where 
Young stood a contested election. His Grace 
discovered in him talents for oratory as well as 
/or poetry : nor was this judgment wrong. 
Young, after he took orders, became a very po- 
pular preacheiv, and was much followed for the 
grace and animation of his delivery. By hia 
oratorical talents he was once in his life, accord- 
ing to the Biographia, deserted. As he wa 
preaching in his turn at St. James's, he plainly 
perceived it was out of his power to command 
the attention of his audience. This so affected 
the feelings of the preacher, that he sat back in 
the pulpit and burst into tears. But we must 
pursue his poetical life. 

In 1719 he lamented the death of Addison, in 



338 



YOUNG. 



a letter addressed to their common friend 
Tickell. For the secret history of the following 
lines, if they contain any, it is now vain to seek : 

In joy once join' d, in sorrow, bow, for years- 
Partner in grief, and brother of my tears, 
Tickell, accept this verse, thy mournful due. 

From your account of Tickell it appears that 
he and Young used to " communicate to each 
ther whatever verses they wrote, even to the 
?ast things." 

In 1719 appeared a " Paraphrase on Part of 
the Book of Joh." Parker, to Avhom it is dedi- 
cated, had not long, hy means of the seals, heen 
qualified for a patron. Of this work the Author's 
opinion may be known from his letter to Curll : 
" You seem, in the Collection you propose, to 
have omitted what I think may claim the first 
place in it ; I mean a Translation from Part of 
Job, printed by Mr. Tonson." The Dedica- 
tion, which was only suffered to appear in Mr. 
Tonson's edition, while it speaks with satisfac- 
tion of his present retirement, seems to make an 
unusual struggle to escape from retirement. But 
every one who sings in the dark does not sing 
from joy. It is addressed, in no common strain 
of flattery, to a chancellor, of whom he clearly 
appears to have had no kind of knowledge. 

Of his Satires it would not have been possible 
to fix the dates without the assistance of first 
editions, which, as you had occasion to observe 
in your account of Dry den, are with difficulty 
found. We must then have referred to the 
poems, to discover when they were written. 
For these internal notes of time we should not 
have referred in vain. The first Satire laments, 
that " Guilt's chief foe in Addison is fled." 
The second, addressing himself, asks 

Is thy ambition sweating for a rhyirt.,, 
Thou unambitious fool, at this late time 
A fool at forty is a fool indeed 

The Satires were originally published separately 
in folio, under the title of " The Universal Pas- 
sion." These passages fix the appearance of the 
first to about 1725, the time at which it came 
out. As Young seldom suffered his pen to dry 
after he had once dipped it in poetry, we may 
conclude that he began his Satires soon after he 
had written the Paraphrase on Job. The last 
Satire was certainly finished in the beginning of 
the year 1726. In December, 1725, the King, 
in his passage from Helvoetsluys, escaped with 
great difficulty from a storm by landing at Rye ; 
and the conclusion of the Satire turns the escape 
into & miracle, in such an encomiastic strain of 
compliment as poetry too often seeks to pay to 
royalty. 

From the sixth of these poems we learn, 

Midst empire's charms, how Carolina's heart 
Glow'd with the love of virtue and of art ; 



since the grateful poet tells us, in the next 
couplet, 

Her favour is diffused to that degree, 
Excess pf goodness, it has dawn'd on me. 

Her Majesty had stood godmother, and given 
her name to the daughter of the lady whom 
Young married in 1731 ; and had perhaps shown 
some attention to Lady Elizabeth's future hus- 
band. 

The fifth Satire, " On Women," was noi 
published till 1727; and the sixth not till 1728. 

To these poems, when, in 1728, he gathered 
them into one publication, he prefixed a Preface ; 
in which he observes, that " no man can con- 
verse much in the world, but at what he meets 
with he must either be insensible or grieve, or 
be angry or smile. Now to smile at it, and turn 
it into ridicule," he adds, " I think most eli- 
gible, as it hurts ourselves least, and gives vice 
and folly the greatest offence. Laughing at the 
misconduct of the world will, in a great measure, 
ease us of any more disagreeable passion about 
it. One passion is more effectually driven out 
by another than by reason, whatever some 
teach." So wrote, and so of course thought, 
the lively and witty satirist at the grave age of 
almost fifty, who, many years earlier in life, 
wrote " The Last Day." After all, Swift pro- 
nounced of these Satires, that they should either 
have been more angry or more merry. 

Is it not somewhat singular that Young pre- 
served, without any palliation, this Preface, so 
bluntly decisive in favour of laughing at the 
world, in the same collection of his works which 
contains the mournful, angry, gloomy, " Night 
Thoughts ?" 

At the conclusion of the Preface he applies 
Plato's beautiful fable of " The Birth of Love" 
to modern poetry, with the addition " that 
poetry, like love, is a little subject to blindness, 
which makes her mistake her way to prefer- 
ments and honours ; and that she retains a duti- 
ful admiration of her father's family ; but di- 
vides her favours, and generally lives with her 
mother's relations." Poetry, it is true, did not 
lead Young to preferments or to honours ; but 
was there not something like blindness in the 
flattery which he sometimes forced her and her 
sister Prose to utter? She was always, indeed, 
taught by him to entertain a most dutiful ad- 
miration of riches ; but surely Young, though 
nearly related to Poetry, had no connection witli 
her whom Plato makes the mother of Love. 
That he could not well complain of being related 
to Poverty appears clearly from the frequent 
bounties which his gratitude records, and from 
the wealth which he left behind him. By 
" The Universal Passion" he acquired no vulgar 
fortune, more than three thousand pounds. A 
considerable sum had already been swallowed 
up in the South Sea. For this loss he took the 



Y O U N G. 



339 



vengeance of an author. His muse makes 
poetical use more than once of a South Sea 
dream. 

It is related by Mr. Spence in his Manu- 
script Anecdotes, on the authority of Mr. Raw- 
linson, that Young, upon the publication of his 
" Universal Passion," received from the Duke 
of Graf'tun two thousand pounds, and that, 
when one of his friends exclaimed, " Two 
thousand pounds for a poem!" he said it was 
the best bargain he ever made in his life, for 
the poem was worth four thousand. 

This story may be true; but it seems to have 
been raised from the two answers of Lord 
Burghley and Sir Philip Sidney in Spenser's 
Life. 

After inscribing his Satires, not perhaps 
without the hopes of preferment and honours, 
to such names as the Duke of Dorset, Mr. 
Dodington, Mr. Spencer Compton, Lady Eli- 
zabeth Germaine, and Sir Robert Walpole, he 
returns to plain panegyric. In 1726 he ad- 
dressed a poem to Sir Robert Walpole, of which 
•the title sufficiently explains the intention. If 
Young must be acknowledged a ready celebra- 
tor, he did not endeavour, or did not choose, to 
be a lasting one. " The Instalment" is among 
the pieces he did not admit into the number of 
his excusable writings. Yet it contains a couplet 
which pretends to pant after the power of be- 
stowing immortalitj : 

O ! how I long,, enkindled by the theme, 
In deep eternity to launch thy name. 

The bounty of the former reign seems to have 
been continued, possibly increased, in this. 
Whatever it might have been, the Poet thought 
he deserved it ; for he was not ashamed to ac- 
knowledge what, without his acknowledgment, 
would now perhaps never have been known : 

My breast, O Walpole, glows with grateful »fi.re, 
The streams of royal bounty, turn'd by thee, 
Ref a ejh the dry domains of poesy. 

If the purity of modern patriotism will term 
Young a pensioner, it must at least be confessed 
he was a grateful one. 

The reign of the new monarch was ushered 
in by Young with " Ocean, an Ode." The hint 
of it was taken from the royal speech, which 
recommended the increase and the encourage- 
ment of the seamen ; that they might be " in- 
vited rather than compelled by force and vio- 
lence, to enter into the service of their coun- 
try;" a plan which humanity must lament that 
policy has not even yet been able or willing to 
carry into execution. Prefixed to the original 
publication were an " Ode to the King, Pater 
Patriae," and an " Essay on Lyric Poetry." 
It is but justice to confess, that he preserved 
neither of them ; and that the Ode itself, which 



in the first edition, and in the last, consists of 
seventy-three stanzas, in the Author's own edi- 
tion is reduced to forty-nine. Among the 
omitted passages is a " Wish," that concluded 
the poem, which few would have suspected 
Young of forming; and of which, few after 
having formed it, would confess something like 
their shame by suppression. 

It stood originally so high in the Author's 
opinion, that he entitled the poem, " Ocean, an 
Ode. Concluding with a Wish." This wish 
consists of thirteen stanzas. The first runs 
thus : 

O may I steal 

Along the vale 
Of humble live secure from foes ! 

My friend sincere, 

My judgment clear, 
And gentle business my repose I 

The three last stanzas are not more remark- 
able for just rhymes : but, altogether, they 
will make rather a curious page in the life of 
Young : 

Propbetic scheme 3 , 

And golden dreams, 
May I, unsanguine/cast away ! 

Have what I have, 

And live, not leave, 
Enamour'd of the present day ! 

My hours my own ! 

My faults unknown ! 
My chief revenue in content ! 

Then leave one beam 

Of honest fame ! 
And scorn the labour'd monument ! 

Unhurt nry urn 

Till that great tcrn 
"When mighty Nature's self shall die, 

Time cease to glide, 

With human pride, 
Sunk in the ocean of eternity ! 

It is whimsical, that he, who was soon to bid 
adieu to rhyme, should fix upon a measure in 
which rhyme abounds even to satiety. Of this 
he said, in his " Essay on Lyric Poetry," pre- 
fixed to the poem—" For the more harmony 
likewise I chose the frequent return of rhyme, 
which laid me under great difficulties. But 
difficulties overcome, give grace and pleasure. 
Nor can I account for the pleasure of rhyme in 
general (of which the moderns are too fond) 
but from this truth." Yet the moderns surely 
deserve not much censure for their fondness of 
what, by their own confession, affords pleasure, 
and abounds in harmony. 

The next paragraph in his Essay did not oc- 
cur to him when he talked of "that great turn" 
in the stanza just quoted. " But then the wri- 
ter must take care that the difficulty is over- 



340 



YOUNG. 



,5ome. That is, he must make rhyme consist 
with as perfect sense and expression, as couid 
he expected if he was perfectly free from that 
shackle." 

Another part of this Essay will convict the 
following stanza of, what every reader will dis- 
cover in it, " involuntary burlesque." 

The northern blast, 

The shatter'd mast, 
The syrt, the whirlpool, and the rock, 

The breaking spout, 

The stars gone out, 
The boiling streight, the monster's shock. 

But would the English poets fill quite so 
many volumes, if all their productions were to 
he tried, like this, hy«.n elaborate essay on each 
particular species of poetry of which they exhi- 
bit specimens ? 

If Young he not a lyric poet, he is at least a 
critic in that sort of poetry ; and, if his lyric 
poetry can be proved bad, it was first proved so 
by his own criticism. This surely is candid. 

Milbourn was styled by Pope " the fairest of 
critics," only because he exhibited his own ver- 
sion of Virgil to be compared with Dryden's 
which he .condemned, and with which every 
reader had it not otherwise in his power to com- 
pare it. Young was surely not the most unfair 
of poets for prefixing to a lyric composition an 
Essay on Lyric Poetry, so just and impartial as 
to condemn himself. 

We shall soon come to a work, before which 
we find indeed no critical essay, but which dis- 
dains to shrink from the touchstone of the se- 
verest critic ; and which certainly, as I remem- 
ber to have heard you say, if it contain some of 
the worst, contains also some of the best things 
in the language. 

Soon after tbe appearance of " Ocean," when 
he was almost fifty, Young entered into orders. 
In April, 1728,* not long after he had put on 
the gown, he was appointed chaplain to George 
the Second. 

The tragedy of " The Brothers," which was 
already in rehearsal, he immediately withdrew 
from the stage. The managers resigned it with 
some reluctance to the delicacy of the new cler- 
gyman. The epilogue to " The Brothers," the 
only appendages to any of his three plays which 
he added himself, is, I believe, the only one of 
the kind. He calls it an historical epilogue. 
Finding that " Guilt's dreadful close his nar- 
row scene denied," he, in a manner, continues 
the tragedy in the epilogue, and relates how 
Rome revenged the shade of Demetrius, and 
punished Perseus " for this night's deed." 
Of Young's taking orders, something is told 



• Davies, in his Life of Garrick, says 1720, and 
that it was produced thirty-three years after, which 
corresponds wi'-h the date in p. 284. — C. 



by the biographer of Pope, which places the ea- 
siness and simplicity of the Poet in a singular 
light. When he determined on the church, he 
did not address himself to Sherlock, to Atter- 
bury, or to Hare, for the best instructions in 
theology ; but to Pope, who, in a youthful fro- 
lic, advised the diligent perusal of Thomas 
Aquinas. With this treasure Young retired 
from interruption to an obscure place in the 
suburbs. His poetical guide to godliness hear- 
ing nothing of him during half a year, and ap- 
prehending he might have carried the jest too 
far, sought after him, and found him just in 
time to prevent what Ruffhead calls " an irre- 
trievable derangement." 

That attachment to his favourite study, which 
made him think a poet the surest guide to his 
new profession, left him little doubt whether 
poetry was the surest path to its honours and 
preferments. Not long indeed after he took or- 
ders, he published in prose, 1728, " A true Es- 
timate of Human Life," dedicated, notwith- 
standing the Latin quotations with which it 
abounds, to the Queen ; and a sermon preached 
before the House of Commons, 1729, on the 
martyrdom of King Charles, intituled, " An 
Apology for Princes, or the Reverence due to 
Government." But the " Second Course," the 
counterpart of his " Estimate," without which it 
cannot be called " A true Estimate," though in 
1728 it was announced as " soon to be pub- 
lished," never appeared ; and his old friends the 
muses were not forgotten. In 1730, he relapsed 
to poetry, and sent into the world " Impcrium 
Pelagi : a Naval Lyric, written in Imitation of 
Pindar's Spirit, occasioned by his Majesty's 
Return from Hanover, September, 1729, and 
the succeeding Peace." It is inscribed to the 
Duke of Chandos. In the Preface we are told, 
that the ode is the most spirited kind of poetry, 
and that the Pindaric is the most spirited kind 
of ode. " This I speak," he adds, " with suf- 
ficient candour, at my own very great peril. 
But truth has an eternal title to our confession, 
though we are sure to suffer by it." Behold, 
again, the fairest of poets. Young's " Impevium 
Pelagi" was ridiculed in Fielding's " Tom 
Thumb ;" but, let us not forget that it was one 
of his pieces which the Author of the " Night 
Thoughts" deliberately refused to own. 

Not long after this Pindaric attempt, he pub- 
lished Epistles to Pope, " concerning the Au- 
thors of the Age," 1730. Of these poems one 
occasion seems to have been an apprehension 
lest from the liveliness of his satires, he should 
not be deemed sufficiently serious for promotion 
in the church. 

In July, 1730, he was presented by his Col- 
lege to the rectory of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. 
In May, 1731, he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, 
daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, and widow of 
Colonel Lee. His connection with this lady 



YOUNG. 



341 



arose from his father's acquaintance, already 
mentioned, with Lady Anne Wharton, who 
was coheiress of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, in 
Oxfordshire. Poetry had lately been taught by 
Addison to aspire to the arms of nobility, though 
not with extraordinary happiness. 

We may naturally conclude that Young now 
gave himself up in some measure to the comforts 
of his new connection, and to the expectations 
of that preferment which he thought due to his 
poetical talents, or, at least, to the manner in 
which they had so frequently been exerted. 

The next production of his Muse was The 
Sea-piece, in two odes. 

Young enjoys the credit of what is called an 
" Extempore Epigram on Voltaire j" who when 
he was in England, ridiculed, in the company 
of the jealous English poet, Milton's allegory of 
" Sin and Death" 

You are so -witty, profligate, and thin, 

At once we think thee Milton, Death, and Sin. 

From the following passage in the poetical 
Dedication of his Sea-piece to Voltaire, it seems 
that this extemporaneous reproof, if it must be 
extemporaneous (for what few will now affirm 
Voltaire to have deserved any reproof) was 
something longer than a distich, and something 
more gentle than the distich just quoted. 

No stranger, Sir, though born in foreign climes, 
On Dorset downs, when Milton's page, 
With Sin and Death provoked thy rage, 

Thy rage provoked, who soothed with gentle rhymes? 

By Dorset doivns he probably meant Mr. Dod- 
ington's seat. In Pitt's Poems is " An Epistle 
to Dr. Edward Young, at Eastbury, in Dorset- 
shire, on the Review at Sarum, 1722." 

While with your Dodington retired you sit, 
Charm'd with Ids flowing Burgundy and wit, &c. 

Thomson, in his Autumn, addressing Mr. 
Dodington, calls his seat the seat of the Muses, 

Where, in the secret bower and winding way 
For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay 

The praises Thomson bestows but a few lines 
before on Philips, the second 

Who nobly durst, in rhyme unfetter'd verse, 
With British freedom sing the British song, 

added to Thomson's example and success, might 
perhaps induce Young, as we shall see present- 
ly, to write his great work without rhyme. 

In 1734, he published " The Foreign Address, 
or the best Argument for Peace, occasioned by 
the British fleet and the Posture of Affairs. 
Written in the Character of a Sailor." It is 
not to be found in the Author's four volumes. 

He now appears to have given up all hopes of 
overtaking Pindar, and perhaps at last resolved 



to turn his ambition to some original species of 
poetry. This poem concludes with a formal 
farewell to Ode, which few of Young's readers 
will regret : 

My shell, which Clio gave, which Kings applaud, 
Which Europe's bleeding Genius call'd abroad, 
Adieu! 

In a species of Poetry altogether his own, he 
next tried his skill, and succeeded. 

Of his wife he was deprived 1741. Lady 
Elizabeth had lost, after her marriage with 
Young, an amiable daughter, by her former 
husband, just after she was married to Mr. 
Temple, son of Lord Palmerston. Mr. Temple 
did not long remain after his wife, though he 
was married a second time, to a daughter of Sir 
John Barnard's, whose son is the present peer. 
Mr. and Mrs. Temple have generally been con- 
sidered as Philander and Narcissa. From the 
great friendship which constantly subsisted be- 
tween Mr. Temple and Young, as well as from 
other circumstances, it is probable that the Poet 
had both him and Mrs. Temple in view for 
these characters ; though at the same time some 
passages respecting Philander do not appear to 
suit either Mr. Temple or any other person 
with whom Young was known to be connected 
or acquainted, while all the circumstances relat- 
ing to Narcissa have been constantly found ap- 
plicable to Young's daughter-in-law. 

At what short intervals the Poet tells us he 
was wounded by the deaths of the three persons 
particularly lamented ; none that has read " The 
Night Thoughts" (and who has not read them ?* 
needs to be informed. 

Insatiate Archer ! could not one suffice 1 

Thy shaft flew thrice ; and thrice my peace was 

slain ; 
And thrice, ere thrice yon mo<Jn had fill'd her horn. 

Yet how is it possible that Mr. and Mrs. 
Temple and Lady Elizabeth Young could be 
these three victims, over whom Young has 
hitherto been pitied for having to pour the 
" Midnight Sorrows" of his religious poetry ; 
Mrs. Temple died in 1736; Mr. Temple four 
years afterwards, in 1740 ; and the Poet's wife 
seven months after Mr. Temple, in 1741. How 
could the insatiate Archer thrice slay his peace 
in these three persons, " ere thrice the moon 
had fill'd her horn ?" 

But in the short Preface to " The Complaint' 
he seriously tells us, " that the occasion of this 
poem was real, not fictitious ; and that the facts 
mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflec- 
tions on the thought of the writer." It is pro- 
bable, therefore, that in these three contradictory 
lines the Poet complains more than the father- 
in-law, the friend, or the widower. 

Whatever names belong to these facts, or, if 
the names be those generally supposed, whatever 
X x 



342 



YOUN G. 



Heightening a poet's sorrow may have given the 
facts ; to the sorrow Young felt from them, re- 
ligion and morality are indebted for the " Night 
Thoughts." There is a pleasure sure in sadness 
which mourners only know ! 

Of these poems the two or three first have 
been perused perhaps more eagerly and more 
frequently than the rest. When he got as far as 
the fourth or fifth, his original motive for taking 
up the pen was answered ; his grief was natur- 
ally either diminished or exhausted. We still 
find the same pious poet ; but we hear less of 
Philander and Narcissa, and less of the mourner 
whom he loved to pity. 

Mrs. Temple died of a consumption at Lyons, 
in her way to Nice, the year after her marriage ; 
that is, when poetry relates the fact, " in her 
bridal hour." It is more than poetically true, 
that Young accompanied her to the Continent : 

I flew, I snatch'd her from the rigid North, 
And bore her nearer to the sun. 

But in vain. Her funeral was attended with 
the difficulties painted in such animated colours 
in " Night the Third." After her death, the 
remainder of the party passed the ensuing win- 
ter at Nice. 

The Poet seems perhaps in these compositions 
to dwell with more melancholy on the death of 
Philander and Narcissa, than of his wife. But 
it is only for this reason. He who runs and 
reads may remember, that in the " Night 
Thoughts" Philander and Narcissa are often 
mentioned and often lamented. To recollect la- 
mentations over the Author's wife, the memory 
must have been charged with distinct passages. 
This lady brought him one child, Frederick, to 
whom the Prince of Wales was godfather. 

That domestic grief is, in the first instance, to 
be thanked for these ornaments to our language, 
it is impossible to deny. Nor would it be com- 
mon hardiness to contend, that worldly discon- 
tent had no hand in these joint productions of 
poetry and piety. Yet am I by no means sure 
that, at any rate, we should not have had some- 
thing of the same colour from Young's pencil, 
notwithstanding the liveliness of his satires. In 
so long a life, causes for discontent and occasions 
for grief must have occurred. It is not clear to 
me that his Muse was not sitting upon the 
watch for the first which happened. " Night 
Thoughts" were not uncommon to her, even 
when first she visited the Poet, and at a time 
when he himself was remarkable neither for 
gravity nor gloominess. In his " Last Day," 
almost his earliest poem, he calls her " the me- 
lancholy maid,' ' 



-Whom dismal scenes delight, 



Frequent at tombs and in the realms of Night. 



In the prayer which concludes the second book 
of the same poem, he says— 

— Oh ! permit the gloom of solemn night 
To sacred thought may forcibly invite. 
Oh ! how divine to tread the milky, way, 
To the bright palace of Eternal Day ! 

When Young was writing a tragedy, Grafton 
is said by Spence to have sent him a human 
skull, with a candle in it, as a lamp ; and the 
Poet is reported to have used it. 

What he calls " The true Estimate of Hu- 
man Life," which has already been mentioned, 
exhibits only the wrong side of the tapestry; 
and, being asked why he did not show the right, 
he is said to have replied, that he could not. 
By others it has been told me that this was 
finished ; but that, before there.existed any copy, 
it was torn in pieces by a lady's monkey. 

Still, is it altogether fair to dress up the Poet 
for the man, and to bring the gloominess of the 
" Night Thoughts" to prove the gloominess of 
Young, and to show that his genius, like the 
genius of Swift, was in some measure the sullen 
inspiration of discontent ? 

From them who answer in the affirmative it 
should not be concealed that, though Invisibilia 
non decijyiunt appeared upon a deception in 
Young's grounds; and Ambulantes in horto audi- 
erunt vocem Dei on a building in his garden, his 
parish was indebted to the good humour of the 
Author of the " Night Thoughts" for an as- 
sembly and a bowling-green. 

Whether you think with me I know not ; but 
the famous De mortuis nil nisi bonum always ap- 
peared to me to savour more of female weakness 
than of manly reason. He that has too much 
feeling to speak ill of the dead, who, if they can- 
not defend themselves, are at least ignorant of 
his abuse, will not hesitate by the most wanton 
calumny to destroy the quiet, the reputation, 
the fortune of the living. Yet censure is not 
heard beneath the tomb, any more than praise. 
De mortuis nil nisi verum — De vivis nil nisi bo- 
m*?n— would approach much nearer to good 
sense. After all, the few handfuls of remain- 
ing dust which once composed the body of the 
Author of the " Night Thoughts," feel not much 
concern whether Young pass now for a man of 
sorrow, or for a " fellow of infinite jest." To 
this favour must come the whole family of Yo- 
rick. His immortal part, wherever that now 
dwells, is still less solicitous on this head. 

But to a son of worth and sensibility it is of 
some little consequence whether contemporaries 
believe, and posterity be taught to believe, that 
his debauched and reprobate life cast a Stygian 
gloom over the evening of his father's days, 
saved him the trouble of feigning a character 
completely detestable, and succeeded at last in 



YOUNG. 



343 



bringing his " grey hairs with sorrow to the 
grave." 

The humanity of the world, little satisfied 
with inventing perhaps a melancholy disposi- 
tion for the father, proceeds next to invent an 
argument in support of their invention, and 
chooses that Lorenzo should be Young's own 
son. The Biographia, and every account of 
Young pretty roundly assert this to be the fact; 
of the absolute possibility of which, the Biogra- 
phia itself, in particular dates, contains un- 
deniable evidence. Readers I know there are 
of a strange turn of mind, who Avill hereafter 
peruse the " Night Thoughts" with less satis- 
faction ; who will wish they had still been de- 
ceived ; who will quarrel with me for discover- 
ing that no such character as their Lorenzo ever 
yet disgraced human nature, or broke a father's 
heart. Yet would these admirers of the su- 
blime and terrible be offended, should you set 
them down for cruel and for savage. 

Of this report, inhuman to the surviving son, 
if it be true, in proportion as the character of 
Lorenzo is diabolical, where are we to find the 
proof ? Perhaps it is clear from the poems. 

From the first line to the last of the " Night 
Thoughts" not one expression can be discovered 
which betrays any thing like the father. In 
the " Second Night" I find an expression which 
betrays something else ; that Lorenzo was his 
friend ; one, it is possible, of his former com- 
panions, one of the Duke of Wharton's set. 
The Poet styles him " gay friend;" an appella- 
tion not very natural from a pious incensed fa- 
ther to such a being as he paints Lorenzo, and 
that being his son. 

But let us see how he has sketched this dread- 
ful portrait, from the sight of some of whose 
features the artist himself must have turned 
away with horror. A subject more shocking, 
if his only child really sat to him, than the cru- 
cifixion of Michael Angelo ; upon the, horrid 
story told of which, Young composed a short 
poem of fourteen lines in the early part of 
his life, which he did not think deserved to be 
republished. 

In the " First Night," the address to the 
Poet's supposed son is, 

Lorenzo, fortune makes her court to thee. 

In the " Fifth Night"— 

And burns Lorenzo still for the sublime 
Of life, to hang his airy nest on high 1 

Is this a picture of the son of the Rector of 
Wei wy n ? 

" Eighth Night"— 

In foreign realms (for thou hast travell'd far) — 

which even now does not apply to his son. 



In " Night Five" — 

So wept Lorenzo fair Clarissa's fate ; 

Who gave that angel boy on whom he dotes ; 

And died to give him, orphan'd in his birth ! 

At the beginning of the " Fifth Night" wt? 

find- 
Lorenzo, to recriminate is just, 
I grant the man is vain who writes for praise. 

But to cut short all inquiry ; if any one of 
these passages, if any passage in the poems, be 
applicable, my friend shall pass for Lorenzo. 
The son of the Author of the " Night Thoughts" 
was not old enough, when they were written, 
to recriminate, or to be a father. The " Night 
Thoughts" were begun immediately after the 
mournful event of 1741. The first " Night's" 
appear, in the books of the Company of Sta- 
tioners, as the property of Robert Dodsley, in 
1742. The Preface to " Night Seven" is dated 
July the 7th, 1744. The marriage, in conse- 
quence of which the supposed Lorenzo was 
born, happened in May, 1731. Young's child 
was not born till June, 1733. In 1741 this Lo- 
renzo, this finished infidel, this father to whose 
education Vice had for some years put the last 
hand, was only eight years old. 

An anecdote of this cruel sort, so open to con- 
tradiction, so impossible to be true, who could 
propagate ? Thus easily are blasted the reputa- 
tions of the living and of the dead. 

Who, then, was Lorenzo? exclaim the readers 
I have mentioned. If we cannot be sure that 
he was his son, which would have been finely 
terrible, was he not his nephew, his cousin ? 

These are questions which I do not pretend to 
answer. For the sake of human nature, I 
could wish Lorenzo to have been only the crea- 
tion of the Poet's fancy : like the Quintus of 
Anti Lucretius, quo nomine, 6ays Polignac, 
quemvis Atheum intellige. That this was the 
case, many expressions in the " Night Thoughts" 
would seem to prove, did not a passage in 
" Night Eight" appear to show that he had 
something in his eye for the ground- work at 
least of the painting. Lovelace or Lorenzo 
may be feigned characters ; but a writer does 
not feign a name of which he only gives the ini- 
tial letter: 

Tell not Calista. She will laugh thee dead, 
Or send thee to her hermitage with L ■ 

The Biographia, not satisfied with pointing 
out the son of Young, in that son's life-time, as 
his father's Lorenzo, travels out of its way into 
the history of the son, and tells us of his hav- 
ing been forbidden his college at Oxford for 
misbehaviour. How such anecdotes, were they 
true, tend to illustrate the life of Young, it is 
not easy to discover. Was the son of the 



34,4, 



YOUN G. 



Author of the " Night Thoughts," indeed, for- 
bidden his college for a time, at one of the uni- 
versities? The author of " Paradise Lost," is 
by some supposed to have been disgracefully- 
ejected from the other. From juvenile follies 
who is free ? But, whatever the Biographia 
chooses to relate, the son of Young experienced 
no dismission from his college either lasting or 
temporary. 

Yet, were nature to indulge him with a second 
youth, and to leave him at the same time the 
experience of that which is past, be would pro- 
bably spend it differently — who would not ?— he 
would certainly be the occasion of less uneasiness 
to his father. But, from the same experience, 
he would as certainly, in the same case, be treat- 
ed differently by his father. 

Young was a poet : poets, with reverence be 
it spoken, do not make the best parents. Fancy 
and imagination seldom deign to stoop from 
their heights; always stoop unwillingly to the 
low level of common duties. Aloof from vulgar 
life, they pursue their rapid night beyond the 
ken of mortals, and descend not to earth but 
when compelled by necessity. The prose of 
ordinary occurrences is beneath the dignity of 
poets. . 

He who is connected with the Author of the 
" Night Thoughts," only by veneration for the 
poet and the Christian, may be allowed to ob- 
serve, that Young is one of those concerning 
whom, as you remark in your account of Addi- 
son, it is proper rather to say " nothing that is 
false than all that is true." 

But the son of Young would almost sooner, I 
know, pass for a Lorenzo, than see himself vin- 
dicated, at the expense of his father's memory, 
from follies which, if it may be thought blame- 
able in a boy to have committed them, it is sure- 
ly praiseworthy in a man to lament, and cer- 
tainly not only unnecessary, but cruel in a bio- 
grapher to record. 

Of the " Night Thoughts," notwithstanding 
their Author's professed retirement, all are in- 
scribed to great or to growing names. He had 
not yet weaned himself from earls and dukes, 
from the speakers of the House of Commons, 
lords commissi oners of the Treasury, and chan- 
cellors of the Exchequer. In " Night Eight" 
the politician plainly betrays himsel f 

Think no post needful that demands a knave : 
When late our civil helm was shifting hands, 
So P thought : think better if you can. 

Yet it must be confessed, that at the conclusion 
of " Night Nine," weary perhaps of courting 
earthly patrons, he tells his soul, 

Henceforth 
Thy patron he, whose diadem has dropt 
You gems of Heaven ; eternity thy prize ; 
Aod leave the racers of the world their own. 



The " Fourth Night" was addressed by " a 
much indebted Muse" to the Honourable Mr. 
Yorke, now Lord Hardwicke; who meant to 
have laid the Muse under still greater obligation, 
by the living at Shenfield, in Essex, if it had 
become vacant. 

The " First Night" concludes with this pas- 



Dark, though not blind, like thee, Meonides ; 

Or Milton, thee. Ah ! could I reach your strain ; 

Or his who made Meonides our own ! 

Man too he sung. Immortal man I sing. 

Oh had he prest this theme, pursued the track 

Which opens out of darkness into day ! 

Oh had he mounted on his wing of fire, 

Soar'd, where I sink, and sung immortal man — 

How had it blest mankind, and rescued me ! 

To the Author of these lines was dedicated, in 
1756, the first volume of " An Essay on the 
Writings and Genius of Pope," which attempt- 
ed, whether justly or not, to pluck from Pope 
his " Wing of Fire," and to reduce him to a 
rank at least one degree lower than the first class 
of English poets. If Young accepted and ap- 
proved the dedication, he countenanced this at- 
tack upon the fame of him whom he invokes as 
his Muse. 

Part of " paper-sparing" Pope's Third Book 
of the " Odyssey," deposited in the Museum, is 
written upon the back of a letter signed " E. 
Young," which is clearly the hand-writing of 
our Young. The letter, dated only May the 
2d, seems obscure ; but there can be little doubt 
that the friendship he requests was a literary 
one, and that he had the highest literary 
opinion of Pope. The request was a prologue, 
1 am told. 

" Dear Sir, May the 2d. 

" Having been often from home, I know not 
if you have done me the favour of calling on me. 
But, be that as it will, I much want that in- 
stance of your friendship I mentioned in my 
last ; a friendship I am very sensible I can re- 
ceive from no one but yourself. I should not 
urge this thing so much but for very particular 
reasons ; nor can you be at a loss to conceive 
how a ' trifle of this nature' may be of serious 
moment to me ; and while I am in hopes of the 
great advantage of your advice about it, I shall 
not be so absurd as to make any further step 
without it. I know you are much engaged, 
and only hope to hear of you at your entire 
leisure. 

I am, Sir, your most faithful 

And obedient servant, 

E. Xuung." 

Nay, even after Pope's death, he says, in 
« JNight Seven," 



YOUNG. 



345 



Pope, who could'st make immortals, art thou dead? 

Either the " Essay," then, was dedicated to 
a patron who disapproved its doctrine, which I 
have heen told by the author was not the case ; 
or Young appears, in his old age, to have bar- 
tered for a dedication, an opinion entertained of 
his friend through all that part of life when he 
must have been best able to form opinions. 

From this account of Young, two or three 
short passages, which stand almost together in 
" Night Four," should not be excluded. They 
afford a picture by his own hand, from the study 
of which my readers may choose to form their 
own opinion of the features of his mind, and 
the complexion of his life. 

Ah me ! the dire eflect 
Of loitering here, of death defrauded long ; 
Of old so gracious (and let that suffice) 
My very Master knows me not. 
I've been so long remember'd I'm forgot. 



When in his courtiei's' ears 1 pour my plaint, 

They drink it as the Nectar of the Great; 

And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow. 

Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy, 
Court-favour, yet untaken, I besiege. 



If this song lives, Posterity shall know 
One, though in Britain born, with courtiers bred 
Who thought e'en gold might come a day too late ; 
"Nor on his subtle death-bed plann'd his scheme 
For future vacancies in church or state. 

Deduct from the writer's age " twice told the 
period spent on stubborn Troy," and you will 
still leave him more than forty when he sat 
down to the miserable siege of court favour. 
He has before told us 

A fool at forty is a fool indeed. 

After all, the siege seems to have been raised 
only in consequence of what the general thought 
his " death-bed." 

By these extraordinary poems, written after 
he was sixty, of which I have been led to say 
so much, I hope, by the wish of doing justice to 
the living and the dead, it was the desire of 
Young to be principally known. He entitled 
the four volumes which he published himself, 
" The Works of the Author of the Night 
Thoughts." "While it is remembered that from 
these he excluded many of his writings, let it 
not be forgotten that the rejected pieces con- 
tained nothing prejudicial to the cause of virtue, 
or of religion. Were every thing that Young 
ever wrote to be published, he would only ap- 
pear, perhaps, in a less respectable light as a 
poet, and more despicable as a dedicator ; he 



would not pass for a worse Christian, or for a 
worse man. This enviable praise is due to 
Young. Can it be claimed by every writer ? His 
dedications, after all, he had perhaps no right to 
suppress. They all, I believe, speak, not a little 
to the credit of his gratitude, of favours re- 
ceived; and I know not whether the author, 
who has once solemnly printed an acknowledg- 
ment of a favour, should not always print it. 

Is it to the credit or to the discredit of Young, 
as a poet, that of his " Night Thoughts" the 
French are particularly fond ? 

Of the " Epitaph on Lord Aubrey Beau- 
clerk," dated 1740, all I know is, that I find it 
in the late body of English Poetry, and that I 
am sorry to find it there. 

Notwithstanding the farewell which he 
seemed to have taken in the " Night Thoughts" 
of every thing which bore the least resemblance 
to ambition, he dipped again in politics. In 
1745 he wrote " Reflections on the public Situ- 
ation of the Kingdom, addressed to the Duke of 
Newcastle;" indignant, as it appears, to behold 

— a pope-bred Princeling crawl ashore, 
And whistle cut-throats, with those swords that 

scraped 
Their barren rocks for wretched sustenance, 
To cut his passage to the British throne. 

This political poem might be called a " Night 
Thought." Indeed it was originally printed as 
the conclusion of the " Night Thoughts," though 
he did not gather it with his other works. 

Prefixed to the second edition of Howe's 
" Devout Meditations" is a Letter from Young, 
dated Jan. 19, 1752, addressed to Archibald 
Macauly, Esq. thanking him for the book, 
which he says he shall " never lay far out of 
his reach; for a greater demonstration of a 
sound head and a sincere heart he never saw." 

In 1753, when " The Brothers" had lain by 
him above thirty years, it appeared upon the 
stage. If any part of his fortune had been ac- 
quired by servility of adulation, he now deter- 
mined to deduct from it no inconsiderable sum, 
as a gift to the Society for the Propagation of 
the Gospel. To this sum he hoped the profits 
of " The Brothers" would amount. In his 
calculation he was deceived ; but by the bad 
success of his play the Society was not a loser. 
The Author made up the sum he originally in- 
tended, which was a thousand pounds, from his 
own pocket. 

The next performance which he printed was 
a prose publication, entitled, " The Centaur not 
fabulous, in Six Letters to a Friend, on the 
Life in Vogue." The conclusion is dated No- 
vember 29, 1754. In the third Letter is de- 
scribed the death-bed of the " gay, young, no- 
ble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched 
Altamont." His last words were—" My 



34>6 



YOUN G. 



principles have poisoned my friend, my extrav- 
agance has beggared my hoy, my unkindness has 
murdered my wife." Either Altamont and 
Lorenzo were the twin production of fancy, or 
Young was unlucky enough to know two char- 
acters who bore no little resemblance to each 
other in perfection of wickedness. Report has 
been accustomed to call Altamont Lord Euston. 

" The Old Man's Relapse," occasioned by an 
Epistle to Walpole, if written by Young, which 
I much doubt, must have been written very late 
in life. It has been seen, I am told, in a Mis- 
cellany published thirty years before his death. 
In 1758, he exhibited "The Old Man's Re- 
lapse" in more than words, by again becoming a 
dedicator, and publishing a sermon addressed to 
the King. 

The lively Letter in prose, " On Original 
Composition," addressed to Richardson, tLe 
author of " Clarissa," appeared in 1759. Though 
he despair " of breaking through the frozen ob- 
structions of age and care's incumbent cloud, 
into that flow of thought and brightness of ex- 
pression which subjects so polite require;" yet 
is it more like the production of untamed, un- 
bridled youth, than of jaded fourscore. Some 
sevenfold volumes put him in mind of Ovid's 
sevenfold channels of the Nile at the conflagra- 
tion: 

ostia septem 



Pulverulenta vocant, septem sine flumine valles. 

Such leaden labours are like Lycurgus's iron 
money, which are so much less in value than in 
bulk, that it required barns for strong boxes, 
and a yoke of oxen to draw five hundred pounds. 

If there is a famine of invention in the land, 
we must travel, he says, like Joseph's brethren, 
far for food ; we must visit the remote and rich 
ancients. But an inventive genius may safely 
stay at home ; that, like the widow's cruise, is 
divinely replenished from within, and affords us 
a miraculous delight. He asks why it should 
seem altogether impossible, that Heaven's latest 
editions of the human mind may be the most 
correct and fair ? and Jonson, he tells us, was 
very learned, as Samson was very strong, to his 
own hurt. Blind to the nature of tragedy, he 
pulled down all antiquity on his head, and buried 
himself under it. 

Is this " care's incumbent cloud," or " the 
frozen obstructions of age?" 

In this Letter Pope is severely censured for 
his " fall from Homer's numbers, free as air, 
lofty and harmonious as the spheres, into child- 
ish shackles and tinkling sounds ; for putting- 
Achilles into petticoats a second time:" but we 
are told that the dying swan talked over an epic 
plan with Young a few weeks before his decease. 

Young's chief inducement to write this Letter 
was, as he confesses, that he might erect a mon- 
umental marble to the memory of an old friend. 



He, who employed his pious pen for almost the 
last time in thus doing justice to the exemplary 
deathbed of Addison, might probably, at the 
close of his own life, afford no unuseful lesson 
for the deaths of others. 

In the postscript, he writes to Richardson, 
that he will see in his next how far Addison is 
an original. But no other letter appears. 

The few lines which stand in the last edition, 
as " sent by Lord Melcombe to Dr. Young, not 
long before his Lordship's death," were indeed 
so sent, but were only an introduction to what 
was there meant by " The Muse's latest Spark. " 
The poem is necessary, whatever may be its 
merit, since the Preface to it is already printed. 
Lord Melcombe called his Tusculum " La 
Trappe." 

Love thy country, wish it well, 

Not with too intense a care^ 
'Tis enough, that when it fell, 

Thou its ruin didst not share. 

Envy's censure, Flattery's praise, 
With unmoved indifference view, 

Learn to tread life's dangerous maze, ' 
With unerring Virtue's clue. 

Void of strong desire and fear, 
Life's wide ocean trust no more; 

Strive thy little bark to steer 
With the tide, but near the shore. 

Thus prepared, thy shorten'd sail 
Shall, whene'er the winds increase, 

Seizing each propitious gale 
Waft thee to the port of peace. 

Keep thy conscience from offence, 
And tempestuous passions free, 

So, when thou art call'd from hence, 
Easy shall thy passage be ; 

Easy shall thy passage be, 

Cheerful thy allotted stay, 
Short th' account 'twixt God and thee : 

Hope shall meet thee on the way: 

Truth shall lead thee to the gate, 

Mercy's self shall let thee in, 
Where its never-changiug state, 

Full perfection shall begin. 

The poem was accompanied by a letter. 

" La Trappe, the 27th of Oct. 1761. 
" Dear Sir, 
" You seemed to like the ode I sent you for 
your amusement : I now send it you as a pre- 
sent. If you please to accept of it, and are will- 
ing that our friendship should be known when 
we are gone, you will be pleased to leave this 
among those of your own papers that may possi- 
bly see the light by a posthumous publication. 
God send us health while we stay, and an easy 
journey ! 

My dear Dr. Young, 

Yours, mcst cordially, 

Melcombe." 



YOUNG. 



347 



In 1762, a short time before his death, Young 
published " Resignation." Notwithstanding 
the manner in which it was really forced from 
him by the world, criticism has treated it with 
no common severity. If it shall be thought 
not to deserve the highest praise, on the other 
side of fourscore, by whom, except by Newton 
and by Waller, has praise been merited ? 

To Mrs. Montagu, the famous champion of 
Shakspeare, I am indebted for the history of 
" Resignation." Observing that Mrs. Bosca- 
wen, in the midst of her grief for the loss of 
the admiral, derived consolation from the per- 
usal of the " Night Thoughts," Mrs. Montagu 
proposed a visit to the Author. From con- 
versing with Young, Mrs. Boscawen derived 
still further consolation ; and to that visit she 
and the world were indebted for this poem. 
It compliments Mrs. Montagu in the follow- 
ing lines : 

Yet write I must. A lady sues : 

How shameful her request ! 
My brain in labour with dull rhyme, 

Hers teeming with the best 

And again — 

And friend you have, and I the same, 

Whose prudent, soft address 
Will bring to life those healing thoughts 

Which died in your distress. 



That friend, the spirit of thy theme 

Extracting for your ease, 
Will leave to me the dreg, in thoughts 

Too common; such as these. 



By the same lady I was enabled to say, in her 
own words, that Young's unbounded genius ap- 
peared to greater advantage in the companion 
than even in the author ; that the Christian 
was in him a character still more inspired, more 
enraptured, more sublime, than the poet ; and 
that, in his ordinary conversation, 

letting down the golden chain from high, 

He drew his audience upward to the sky. 

Notwithstanding Young had said, in his 
" Conjectures on original Composition," that 
" blank verse is verse unfallen, uncurst ; verse 
reclaimed, re-enthroned in the true language of 
the gods:" notwithstanding he administered 
consolation to his own grief in this immortal 
language, Mrs. Boscawen was comforted in 
rhyme. 

While the poet and the Christian were apply- 
ing this comfort, Young had himself occasion 
for comfort, in consequence of the sudden death 
of Richardson, who was printing the former 
part of the poem. Of Richardson's death he 
says— 



When Heaven would kindly set us free, 

And earth's enchantment end ; 
It t^kcs the most effectual means, 

And robs us of a friend. 

To " Resignation" was prefixed an Apology 
for its appearance : to which more credit is due 
than to the generality of such apologies, from 
Young's unusual anxiety that no more produc- 
tions of his old age should disgrace his former 
fame. In his will dated February 1760, he de- 
sires of his executors, in a particular manner, 
that all his manuscript books and writings 
whatever might be burned, except his book of 
accounts. 

In September, 1764, he added a kind of codi- 
cil, wherein he made it his dying intreaty to his 
housekeeper, to whom he left lOOCtf. " that all 
his manuscripts might be destroyed as soon as 
he was dead, which would greatly oblige her 
deceased friend. ' ' 

It may teach mankind the uncertainty of 
worldly friendships, to know that Young, either 
by surviving those he loved, or by outliving 
their affections, could only recollect the names 
of two friends, his housekeeper and a hatter, to 
mention in his will ; and it may serve to repress 
that testamentary pride, which too often seeks 
for sounding names and titles, to be informed 
that the Author of the " Night Thoughts" did 
" not blush to leave a legacy to his friend Henry 
Stevens, a hatter at the Templegate. " Of these 
two remaining friends, one went before Young. 
But at eighty-four, " where," as he asks in 
The Centaur, " is tha* world into which we 
were born ?" 

The same humility which marked a hatter 
and a housekeeper for the friends of the Author 
of the " Night Thoughts," had before bestowed 
the same title on his footman, in an epitaph in 
his " Church-yard" upon James Baker, dated 
1749; which I am glad to find in the late col- 
lection of his works. 

Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed 
with more ill nature than wit, in a kind of no- 
vel published by Kidgell in 1755, called " The 
Card," under the names of Dr. Elwes and 
Mrs. Fusby. 

Tn April, 1765, at an age to which few attain, 
a period was put to the life of Young. 

He had performed no duty for three or four 
years, but lie retained his intellects to the last. 

Much is told in the " Biographia," which 
I know not to have been true, of the manner 
of his burial ; of the master and children of a 
charity school, which he founded in his parish, 
who neglected to attend their benefactor's 
corpse ; and of a bell which was not caused to 
toll as often as upon those occasions bells usually 
toll. Had that humanity, which is here la- 
vished upon things of little consequence either 
to the living or to the dead, been shown in its 
proper place to the living, I should have had 



34>S 



YOUNG, 



less to say about Lorenzo. They wlio lament 
that these misfortunes happened to Young, for- 
get the praise he bestows upon Socrates, in the 
preface to -" Night Seven," for resenting his 
friend's request about his funeral. 

During some part of his life Young was 
abroad, but I have not been able to learn any 
particulars. 

In his seventh satire he says, 

When, after battle, I the field have seen 
Spread o'er with ghastly shapes which once were 
men. 

It is known also, that from this or from some 
other field he once wandered into the camp with 
a classic in his hand, which he was reading in- 
tently ; and had some difficulty to prove that he 
was only an absent poet, and not a spy. 

The curious reader of Young's life will natu- 
rally inquire to what it was owing, that though 
he lived almost forty years after he took orders, 
which included one whole reign uncommonly 
long, and part of another, he was never thought 
worthy of the least preferment. The Author 
of the " Night Thoughts" ended his days upon 
a living which came to him from his college 
without any favour, and to which he probably 
had an eye when he determined on the church. 
To satisfy curiosity of this kind is, at this dis- 
tance of time, far from easy. The parties them- 
selves know not often, at the instant, why they 
are neglected, or why they are preferred. The 
neglect of Young is by some ascribed to his hav- 
ing attached himself to the Prince of Wales, 
and to his having preached an offensive sermon 
at St. James's. It has been told me that he had 
two hundred a year in the late reign, by the pa- 
tronage of Walpole ; and that, whenever any 
one reminded the King of Young, the only an- 
swer was, "he has a pension." All the light 
thrown on this inquiry, by the following letter 
from Seeker, only serves to show at what a late 
period of life the Author of the " Night 
Thoughts" solicited preferment : 

" Deanery of St. Paul's, July 8, 1758. 
" Good Dr. Young, 
" I have long wondered, that more suitable 
notice of your great merit hath not been taken 
by persons in power : but how to remedy the 
omission 1 see not. No encouragement hath 
ever been given me to mention things of this na- 
ture to his Majesty. And therefore, in all like- 
lihood, the only consequence of doing it would 
be weakening the little influence which I may 
possibly haA r e on some other occasions. Your for- 
tune and your reputation set you above the need 
of advancement ; and your sentiments, above 
that concern for it, on your own account, which, 
on that of the public, is sincerely felt by 
" Your loving brother, 

" Tho. Cant." 



At last, at the age of fourscore, he was ap- 
pointed, in 1761, clerk of the closet to the Prin- 
cess Dowager. 

One obstacle must have stood not a little in 
the way of that preferment after which his 
whole life seems to have panted. Though he 
took orders, he never entirely shook off politics. 
He was always the lion of his master Milton, 
" pawing to get free his hinder parts." By this 
conduct, if he gained some friends, he made 
many enemies. 

Again : Young was a poet ; and again, with 
reverence be it spoken, poets by profession do 
not always make the best clergymen. If the 
Author of the " Night Thoughts" composed 
many sermons, he did not oblige the public with 
many. 

Besides, in the latter part of life, Young was 
fond of holding himself out for a man retired 
from the world. But he seemed to have forgot- 
ten that the same verse which contains " oblitus 
meorum," contains also " obliviscendus et illis." 
The brittle chain of worldly friendship and pa- 
tronage is broken as effectually, when one goes 
beyond the length of it, as when the other does. 
To the vessel which is sailing from the shore, it 
only appears that the shore also recedes ; in life it 
is truly thus. He who retires from the world will 
find himself, in reality, deserted as fast, if not 
faster, by the world. The public is not to be 
treated as the coxcomb treats his mistress ; to 
be threatened with desertion, in order to in 
crease fondness. 

Young seems to have been taken at his word. 
Notwithstanding his frequent complaints of be- 
ing neglected, no hand was reached out to pull 
him from that retirement of which he declared 
himself enamoured. Alexander assigned no 
palace for the residence of Diogenes, who boast- 
ed his surly satisfaction with his tub. 

Of the domestic manners and petty habits of 
the Author of the " Night Thoughts," I hoped 
to have given you an account from the best au- 
thority : but who shall dare to say, To-morrow 
I will be wise or virtuous, or to-morrow I will 
do a particular thing ? Upon inquiring for his 
housekeeper, I learned that she was buried two 
days before I reached the town of her abode. 

In a letter from Tscharner, a noble foreigner, 
to Count Haller, Tscharner says, he has lately 
spent four days with Young at Welwyn, where 
the Author takes all the ease and pleasure man- 
kind can desire. " Every thing about him 
shows the man, each individual being placed by 
rule. All is neat without art. He is very 
pleasant in conversation, and extremely polite." 

This, and more, may possibly be true ; but 
Tscharner's was a first visit, a visit of curiosity 
and admiration, and a visit which the Author 
expected. 

Of Edward Young an anecdote which wan- 
ders among readers is not true, that he was 



YOUN G. 



34-9 



Fielding's Parson Adams, The original of that 
famous painting was William Young, who was 
E clergyman. He supported an uncomfortable 
existence by translating for the booksellers from 
Greek ; and, if he did not seem to be his own 
friend, was at least no man's enemy. Yet the 
facility with which this report has gained belief 
in the world argues, were it not sufficiently 
known, that the Author of the " Night 
Thoughts" bore some resemblance to Adams. 

The attention which Young bestowed upon 
the perusal of books is not unworthy imitation. 
When any passage pleased him, he appears to 
have folded down the leaf. On these passages 
he bestowed a second reading. But the labours 
of man are too frequently vain. Before he re- 
turned to much of what he had once approved, 
he died. Many of his books, which I have seen, 
are by those notes of approbation so swelled be- 
yond their real bulk, that they will hardly shut. 

What though we wade in wealth or soar in fame ! 
Earth's highest station ends in Here he lies! 
And dust to dust concludes her noblest song ! 

The Author of these lines is not without his 
Hicjacet. 

By the good sense of his son, it contains none 
of that praise which no marble can make the 
bad or the foolish merit ; which, without the 
direction of a stone or a turf, will find its way, 
sooner or later, to the deserving. 

M. S. 

Optimi Parentis 

Euvardi Young, LL.D 

Hujus Ecclesise rect. 

Et Elizabethoe 

fcem. prasnob. 

Conjugis ejus amantissima?, 

Pio et gratissimo arimo 

Hoc marmor posuit 

F. Y. 

Filius superstes. 

Is it not strange that the Author of the *' Night 
Thoughts" has inscribed no monument to the 
memory of his lamented wife ? Yet, what mar- 
ble will endure as long as the poems ? 

Such, my good friend, is the account which I 
have been able to collect of the great Young. 
That it may be long before any thing like what 
I have just transcribed be necessary for you, is 
the sincere wish of, 

Dear Sir, 
Your greatly obliged friend, 

Herbert Croft, Jun. 
Lincoln's Inn, 
Sept. 1780. 

P. S. This account of Young was seen by you 
in manuscript, you know, Sir ; and, though I 
could not prevail on you to make any alteration, 
you insisted on striking out one passage, because 
it said, that, if I did not wish you to live long 



for your sake, I did for the sake of myself and 
of the world. But this postscript you will not 
see before the printing of it ; and 1 will say here, 
in spite of you, how I feel myself honoured and 
bettered by your friendship : and that, if I do 
credit to the church, after which I always long- 
ed, and for which I am now going to give in 
exchange the bar, though not at so late a period 
of life as Young took orders, it will be owing, 
in no small measure, to my having had the hap- 
piness of calling the Author of " The Rambler" 
my friend. 

H. C. 
Oxford, Oct. 1782. 

Of Young's poems it is difficult to give any 
general character ; for he has no uniformity of 
manner ; one of his pieces has no great resenw 
blance to another. He began to write early, 
and continued long ; and at different times had 
different modes of poetical excellence in view. 
His numbers are sometimes smooth, and some- 
times rugged; hia style is sometimes concate- 
nated, and sometimes abrupt; sometimes dif- 
fusive, and sometimes concise. His plan seems 
to have started in his mind at the present mo- 
ment ; and his thoughts appear the effect of 
chance, sometimes adverse, and sometimes lucky, 
with very little operation of judgment. 

He was not one of those writers whom ex- 
perience improves, and who, observing their 
own faults, become gradually correct. His 
poem on the " Last Day," his first great per- 
formance, has an equability and propriety, which 
he afterwards either never endeavoured or never 
attained. Many paragraphs are noble, and few 
are mean, yet the whole is languid ; the plan is 
too much extended, and a succession of images 
divides and weakens the general conception ; but 
the great reason why the reader is disappointed 
is, that the thought of the Last Day makes 
every man more than poetical, by spreading over 
his mind a general obscurity of sacred horror, 
that oppresses distinction, and disdains expres- 
sion. 

His story of " Jane Grey" was never popular. 
It is written with elegance enough ; but Jane is 
too heroic to be pitied. 

The " Universal Passion" is indeed a very- 
great performance. It is said to be a series of 
epigrams; but if it be, it is what the Author 
intended : his endeavour was at the production 
of striking distichs and pointed sentences; and 
his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, 
and his points the sharpness of resistless truth. 

His characters are often selected with discern- 
ment, and drawn with nicety; his illustrations 
were often happy, and his reflections often just. 
His species of satire is between those of Horace 
and Juvenal ; and he has the gayety of Horace 
without his laxity of numbers, and the morality 
of Juvenal with greater variation of images. 

Yy 



350 



YOUNG. 



He plays, indeed, only on the surface of life ; 
lie never penetrates the recesses of the mind, 
and therefore the whole power of his poetry is 
exhausted hy a single perusal; his conceits 
please only when they surprise. 

To translate he never condescended, unless 
his " Paraphrase on Joh" may he considered as 
a version : in which he has not, I think, been 
uiisu«cessful ; he indeed favoured himself, by 
choosing those parts which most easily admit 
the ornaments of English poetry. 

He had least success in his lyric attempts, in 
which he seems to have been under some malig- 
nant influence : he is always labouring to be 
great, and at last is only turgid. 

In his " Night Thoughts" he has exhibited a 
very wide display of original poetry, variegated 
with deep reflections and striking allusions, a 
wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of 
fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every 
odour. This is one of the few poems in which 
blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but 
with disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the 
sentiments, and the digressive sallies of ima- 
gination, would have been compressed and re- 
strained by confinement to rhyme. The excel- 
lence of this work is not exactness, but copious- 
ness; particular lines are not to be regarded; 
the power is in the whole ; and in the whole 
there is a magnificence like that ascribed to 
Chinese plantation, the magnificence of vast ex- 
tent and endless diversity. 

His last poem was " Resignation ;" in which 
he made, as he was accustomed, an experiment 
of a new mode of writing, and succeeded better 
than in his " Ocean" or his " Merchant." It 
was very falsely represented as a proof of de- 
cayed faculties. There is Young in every 
stanza, such as he often was in the highest 
vigour. 

His tragedies, not making part of the Collec- 
tion, I had forgotten, till Mr. Stevens recalled 
them to my thoughts by remarking, that he 
seemed to have one favourite catastrophe, as his 
three plays all concluded with lavish suicide ; 
a method by which, as Dry den remarked, a 
poet easily rids his scene of persons whom he 
wants not to keep alive. In " Busiris" there 
are the greatest ebullitions of imagination: but 
the pride of Busiris is such as no other man 
can have, and the whole is too remote from 
known life to raise either grief, terror, or indig- 
nation. The " Revenge" approaches much 
nearer to human practices and manners, and 
therefore keeps possession of the stage ; the first 
design seems suggested by " Othello;" but the 
reflections, the incidents, and the diction, are 



original. The moral observations are so intro- 
duced, and so expressed, as to have all the no- 
velty that can be required. Of " The Bro- 
thers" I may be allowed to say nothing, since 
nothing was ever said of it by the public. 

It must be allowed of Young's poetry that it 
abounds in thought, but without much accu- 
racy or selection. When he lays hold of an illus- 
tration, he pursues it beyond expectation, some- 
times happily, as in his parallel of Quicksilver 
with Pleasure, which I have heard repeated 
with approbation by a lady, of whose praise he 
would have been justly proud, and which is 
very ingenious, very subtle, and almost exact ; 
but sometimes he is less lucky, as when, in his 
" Night Thoughts," it having dropped into his 
mind, that the orbs, floating in space, might be 
called the cluster of creation, he thinks on a 
cluster of grapes, and says, that they all hang 
on the great vine, drinking Ihe- " nectareous 
juice of immortal life." 

His conceits are sometimes yet less valuable. 
In " The Last Day" he hopes to illustrate the 
re-assembly of the atoms that compose the hu- 
man body at the " Trump of Doom" by the 
collection of bees into a swarm at the tinkling 
of a pan. 

The prophet says of Tyre, that " her mer- 
chants are princes." Young says of Tyre in 
his " Merchant," 

Her merchants princes, and each deck a throne. 

Let burlesque try to go beyond him. 

He has the trick of joining the turgid and fa- 
miliar : to buy the alliance of Britain, " Climes 
were paid down. " Antithesis is his favourite. 
" They for kindness hate :" and " because she's 
right she's ever in the wrong." 

His versification is his own ; neither his 
blank nor his rhyming lines have any resem- 
blance to those of former writer's ; he picks up 
no hemistichs, he copies no favourite expres- 
sions ; he seems to have laid up no stores of 
thought or diction, but to owe all to the fortui- 
tous suggestions of the present moment. Yet 
I have reason to believe that, when once he had 
formed a new design, he then laboured it with 
very patient in dusty ; and that he composed 
with great labour and frequent revisions. 

His verses are formed by no certain model ; 
he is no more like himself in his different pro- 
ductions than he is like others. He seems ne- 
ver to have studied prosody, nor to have had 
any direction but from his own ear. But 
with all his defects, be was a man of genius 
and a poet. 



MALLET. 



Of David Mallet, having no written me- 
morial, I am able to give no other account 
than such as is supplied by the unauthorised lo- 
quacity of common fame, and a very slight per- 
sonal knowledge. 

He was by his original one of the Macgregors, 
a clan, that became, about sixty years ago, under 
the conduct of Robin Roy, so formidable and so 
infamous for violence and robbery, that the 
name was annulled by a legal abolition ; and 
when they were all to denominate themselves 
anew, the father, I suppose, of this author, called 
himself Malloch. 

David Malloch was, by the penury of his pa- 
rents, compelled to be janitor of the high school 
at Edinburgh ; a mean office, of which he did 
not afterwards delight to hear. But he sur- 
mounted the disadvantages of his birth and for- 
tune ; for when the Duke of Montrose applied 
to the College of Edinburgh for a tutor to edu- 
cate his sons, Malloch was recommended ; and 
I never heard that he dishonoured his creden- 
tials. 

When his pupils were sent to see the world, 
they were entrusted to his care ; and having 
conducted them round the common circle of 
modish travels, he returned with them to Lon- 
don, where by the influence of the family in 
■which he resided, he naturally gained admission 
to many persons of the highest rank and the 
highest character, to wits, nobles, and statesmen. 

Of his works, I know not whether I can 
trace the series. His first production was 
" William and Margaret;"* of which, though 
it contains nothing very striking or difficult, he 
has been envied the reputation ; and plagiarism 
has been boldly charged, but never proved. 

Not long afterwards he published " The Ex- 
cursion ;" (1728) a desultory and capricious view 
of such scenes of nature as his fancy led him, 
or his knowledge enabled him to describe. It 
is not devoid of poetical spirit. Many of his 
images are striking, and many of the paragraphs 
are elegant. The cast of diction seems to be 
copied from Thomson, whose " Seasons" were 



* Mallet's " William and Margaret" was printed 
in Aaron Hill's " Plain Dealer," No. 38, July 24, 
1724. In its original state it was very different from 
what it is in the last edition of his works. 



then in their full blossom of reputation. He 
has Thomson's beauties and his faults. 

His poem on " Verbal Criticism" (1733) was 
written to pay court to Pope, on a subject 
which he either did not understand, or willingly 
misrepresented ; and is little more than an im- 
provement, or rather expansion, of a fragment 
which Pope printed in a Miscellany long before 
he engrafted it into a regular poem. There is in 
this piece more pertness than wit, and more con- 
fidence than knowledge. The versification is to- 
lerable, nor can criticism allow it a higher praise. 

His first tragedy was " Eurydice," acted at 
Drury-lane, in 1731 ; of which I know not the 
reception nor the merit, but have heard it men- 
tioned as a mean performance. He was not 
then too high to accept a prologue and epilogue 
from Aaron Hill, neither of which can be much 
commended. 

Having cleared his tongue from his native 
pronunciation so as to be no longer distinguished 
as a Scot, he seems inclined to disencumber him- 
self from all adherences of his original, and took 
upon him to change his name from Scotch Mal- 
loch to English Mallet, without any imaginable 
reason of preference which the eye or ear can 
discover. What other proofs he gave of disre- 
spect to his native country, I know not ; but it 
was remarked of him, that he was the only Scot 
whom Scotchmen did not commend. 

About this time Pope, whom be visited fami- 
liarly, published his " Essay on Man," but 
concealed the author ; and when Mallet entered 
one day, Pope asked him slightly what there 
was new. Mallet told him, that the newest 
piece was something called an " Essay on Man," 
which he had inspected idly, and seeing the ut- 
ter inability of the author, who had neither skill 
in writing ner knowledge of the subject, had 
tossed it away. Pope, to punish his self-con- 
ceit, told him the secret. 

A new edition of the works of Bacon being 
prepared (1750) for the press, Mallet was em- 
ployed to prefix a life, which he has written 
with elegance, perhaps with some affectation ; 
but with so much more knowledge of history 
than of science, that when he afterwards under- 
took the Life of Marlborough, Warburton re- 
marked, that he might perhaps forget that Marl- 
bo^cngh was a general, as he had forgotten thai 
Bacon was a philosopher. 



J52 



MALL E T. 



When the Prince of Wales was driven from 
the palace, and, setting himself at the head of 
the opposition, kept a separate court, he en- 
deavoured to increase his popularity by the pat- 
ronage of literature, and made Mallet his under- 
secretary, with a salary of two hundred pounds 
a year j Thomson likewise had a pension ; and 
they were associated in the composition of " The 
Mask of Alfred," which in its original state 
was played at Cliefden in 174)0 ; it was after- 
wards almost wholly changed by Mallet, and 
brought upon the stage at Drury-Lane, in 1751, 
but with no great success. 

Mallet, in a familiar conversation with Gar- 
rick, discoursing of the diligence which he was 
then exerting upon the Life of Marlborough, let 
him know, that, in the series of great men 
quickly to be exhibited, he should find a niche 
for the hero of the theatre. Garrick professed 
to wonder by what artifice he could be intro- 
duced; but Mallet let him know, that, by a 
dexterous anticipation, he should fix him in a 
conspicuous place. " Mr. Mallet," says Gar- 
rick, in his gratitude of exultation, " have you 
left off to write for the stage?" Mallet then 
confessed that he had a drama in his hands. 
Garrick promised to act it; and " Alfred" was 
produced. 

The long retardation of the Life of the Duke 
of Marlborough, shows, with strong conviction, 
how little confidence can be placed in posthumous 
renown. When he died, it was soon determined 
that his story should be delivered to posterity ; 
and the papers supposed to contain the necessary 
information were delivered to Lord Molesworth, 
who had been his favourite in Flanders. When 
Molesworth died, the same papers were trans- 
ferred with the same design to Sir Richard 
Steele, who in some of his exigences put them 
in pawn. They then remained with the old 
Dutchess, who in her will assigned the task to 
Glover and Mallet, with a reward of a thousand 
pounds, and a prohibition to insert any verses. 
Glover rejected, I suppose with disdain, the 
legacy, and devolved the whole work upon Mal- 
let ; who had from the late Duke of Marl- 
borough a pension to promote his industry, and 
who talked of the discoveries which he had 
made ; but left not, when he died, any historical 
labours behind him. 

While he was in the Prince's service he pub- 
lished " Mustapha," with a Prologue by Thom- 
eon, not mean, but far inferior to that which he 
received from Mallet for " Agamemnon." The 
Epilogue, said to be written by a friend, was 
composed in haste by Mallet, in the place of one 
promised which was never given. This tragedy 
was dedicated to the Prince his master. It was 
acted at Drury-Lane in 1739, and was well re- 
ceived, but was never revived. 

In 1740; he produced, as has been already 



tu conjunc- 



mentioned, " The Mask of Alfred, 
tion with Thomson. 

For some time afterwards he lay at rest. 
After a long interval, his next work was 
" Amyntor and Theodora," (1747) a long story 
in blank verse; in which it cannot be denied 
that there is copiousness and elegance of lan- 
guage, vigour of sentiment, and imagery well 
adapted to take possession of the fancy. But it 
is blank verse. This he sold to Vaillant for one 
hundred and twenty pounds. The first sale 
was not great, and it is now lost in forgetful- 
ness. 

Mallet, by address or accident, perhaps by his 
dependence on the Prince, found his way to 
Bolingbroke ; a man whose pride and petulance 
made his kindness difficult to gain, or keep, and 
whom Mallet was content to court by an act, 
which, I hope, was unwillingly performed. 
When it was found that Pope had clandestinely 
printed an unauthorized number of the pam- 
phlet called " The Patriot King," Bolingbroke, 
in a fit of useless fury, resolved to blast his 
memory, and employed Mallet (1749) as the 
executioner of his vengeance. Mallet bad not 
virtue, or had not spirit, to refuse the office ; 
and was rewarded, not long after, with the leg 
acy of Lord Bolingbroke's works. 

Many of the political pieces had been written 
during the opposition to Walpole, and given to 
Franklin, as he supposed, in perpetuity. These, 
among the rest, were claimed by the will. The 
question was referred to arbitrators ; but, when 
they decided against Mallet, he refused to yield 
to the award; and by the help of Millar the 
bookseller, published all that he could find, but 
with success very much below his expectation. 

In 1755, his mask of " Britannia" was acted 
at Drury-Lane; and his tragedy of " Elvira" 
in 1768 ; in which year he was appointed keeper 
of the book of entries for ships in the port of 
London. 

In the beginning of the last war, when the 
nation was exasperated by ill success, he was 
employed to turn the public vengeance upon 
Byng, and wrote a letter of accusation under 
the character of a "Plain Man." The paper 
was with great industry circulated and dis- 
persed ; and he, for his seasonable intervention, 
had a considerable pension bestowed upon him, 
which he retained to his death. 

Towards the end of his life he went with his 
wife to France ; but after a while, finding his 
health declining, he returned alone to England, 
and died in April, 1765. 

He was twice married, and by his first wife 
had several children. One daughter, who mar- 
ried an Italian of rank named Cilesia, wrote a 
tragedy called " Almida," which was acted at 
Drury-lane. His second wife was the daughter 
of a nobleman's steward, who had a considerable 



A K E N S I D E. 



353 



fortune, which she took cave to retain in her 
own hands. 

His stature was diminutive, but he was regu- 
larly formed ; his appearance, till he grew cor- 
pulent, was agreeable, and he suffered it to want 
no recommendation that dress could give it. 
His conversation was elegant and easy. The 
rest of his character may, without injury to his 
memory, sink into silence. 

As a writer, he cannot be placed in any high 
}lass. There is no species of composition in 
Which he was eminent. His dramas had their 



day, a short day, and are forgotten ; his blank 
verse seems to my ear the echo of Thomson. 
His " Life of Bacon" is known as it is appended 
to Bacon's volumes, but is no longer mentioned. 
His works are such as a writer, bustling in the 
world, showing himself in public, and emerg- 
ing occasionally, from time to time, into notice, 
might keep alive by his personal influence ; but 
which, conveying little information, and giving 
no great pleasure, must soon give way, as the 
succession of things produces new topics of con- 
versation, and other modes of amusement. 



ARENSIDE. 



Mark Akenside was born on the ninth of No- 
vember, 1721, at Newcastle upon Tyne. His 
father Mark was a butcher, of the presbyterian 
sect ; his mother's name was Mary .Lumsden. 
He received the first part of his education at 
the grammar-school of Newcastle ; and was af- 
terwards instructed by Mr. Wilson, who kept 
a private academy. 

At the age of eighteen he was sent to Edin- 
burgh, that he might qualify himself for the of- 
fice of a dissenting minister, and received some 
assistance from the fund which the dissenters 
employ in educating young men of scanty for- 
tune. But a wider view of the world opened 
other scenes, and prompted other hopes : he 
determined to study physic, and repaid that 
contribution, which, being received for a differ- 
ent purpose, he justly thought it dishonourable 
to retain. 

Whether, when he resolved not to be a dis- 
senting minister, he ceased to be a dissenter, I 
know not. He certainly retained an unneces- 
sary and outrageous zeal for what he called and 
thought liberty ; a zeal which sometimes dis- 
guises from the world, and not rarely from the 
mind which it possesses, an envious desire of 
plundering wealth or degrading greatness ; and 
of which the immediate tendency is innovation 
and anarchy, an impetuous eagerness to subvert 
and confound, with very little care what shall 
be established. 

Akenside was one of those poets who have 
felt very eai'ly the motions of genius, and one 
of those students who have very early stored 
their memories with sentiments and images. 
Many of his performances were produced in his 
youth ; and his greatest work, " The Pleasures 
of Imagination," appeared in 1744. I have 



heard Dodsley, by whom it was published, re- 
late, that when the copy Avas offered him, the 
price demanded for it, which was a hundred and 
twenty pounds, being such as he was not in- 
clined to give precipitately, he carried the work 
to Pope, who, having looked into it, advised hirn 
not to make a niggardly offer; for " this was no 
every- day writer." 

In 1741 he went to Leyden, in pursuit of me- 
dical knowledge; and three years afterwards 
(May 16, 1744) became doctor of physic, hav- 
ing, according to the custom of the Dutch Uni- 
versities, published a thesis or dissertation. The 
subject which he chose was " The Original and 
Growth of the Human Foetus ;" in which he is 
said to have departed, with great judgment, 
from the opinion then established, and to have 
delivered that which has been since confirmed 
and received. 

Akenside was a young man, warm with every 
notion that by nature or accident had been con- 
nected with the sound of liberty, and, by an ec- 
centricity which such dispositions do not easily 
avoid, a lover of contradiction, and no friend to 
any thing established. He adopted Shaftes- 
bury's foolish assertion of the efficacy of ridicule 
for the discovery of truth. For this he was 
attacked by Warburton, and defended by Dy- 
son : Warburton afterwards reprinted his re- 
marks at the end of his dedication to the Free- 
thinkers. 

The result of all the arguments, which have 
been produced in a long and eager discussion of 
this idle question, may easily be collected. It 
ridicule be applied to any position as the test of 
truth, it will then become a question whether 
such ridicule be just; and this can only be de- 
cided by the application of truth, as the test of 



354< 



AKENSIDE 



ridicule. Two men fearing, one a real and the 
other a fancied danger, will he for awhile 
equally exposed to the inevitable consequences 
of cowardice, contemptuous censure, and ludi- 
crous representation ; and the true state of 
both cases must be known, before it can be 
decided whose terror is rational, and whose is 
ridiculous ; who is to be pitied, and who to be 
despised. Both are for awhile equally exposed 
to laughter, but both are not therefore equally 
contemptible. 

In the revisal of his poem, though he died be- 
fore he had finished it, he omitted the lines 
which had given occasion to Warburton's objec- 
tions. 

He published, soon after his return from Ley- 
den, (1745) his first collection of odes : and was 
impelled, by his rage of patriotism, to write a 
Very acrimonious epistle to Pulteney, whom he 
stigmatizes, under the name of Curio, as the be- 
trayer of his country. 

Being now to live by his profession, he first 
commenced physician at Northampton, where 
Dr. Stonehouse then practised, with such repu- 
tation and success, that a stranger was not likely 
to gain ground upon him. Akenside tried the 
contest awhile ; and having deafened the place 
with clamours for liberty, removed to Hamp- 
stead, where he resided more than two years, 
and then fixed himself in London, the proper 
place for a man of accomplishments like his. 

At London he was known as a poet, but was 
still to make his way as a physician ; and would 
perhaps have been reduced to great exigences, 
but that Mr. Dyson, with an ardour of friend- 
ship that has not many examples, allowed him 
three hundred pounds a year. Thus supported, 
he advanced gradually in medical reputation, 
but never attained any great extent of practice, 
or eminence of popularity. A physician in a 
great city seems to be the mere plaything of for- 
tune ; his degree of reputation is, for the most 
part, totally casual : they that employ him know 
not his excellence; they that reject him know 
not his deficience. By any acute observer, who 
had looked on the transactions of the medical 
■world for half a century, a very curious book 
might be written on the " Fortune of Physi- 
cians." 

Akenside appears not to have been wanting to 
his own success : he placed himself in view by 
all the common methods ; he became a Fellow 
of the Royal Society ; he obtained a degree at 
Cambridge ; and was admitted into the College 
©f Physicians ; he wrote little poetry, but pub- 
ished, from time to time, medical essays and ob- 
servations : he became physician to St. Tho- 
mas's Hospital; he read the Gulstonian Lec- 
tures in Anatomy; but began to give, for the 
Crounian Lecture, a history of the revival of 
learning, from which he soon desisted ; and, in 
conversation, he very eagerly forced himself into 



notice by an ambitious ostentation of elegance 
and literature. 

His Discourse on the Dysentery (1764) was 
considered as a very conspicuous specimen of 
Latinity ; which entitled him to the same height 
of place among the scholars as he possessed be- 
fore among the wits; and he might perhaps 
have risen to a greater elevation of character, 
but that his studies were ended with his life, by 
a putrid fever, June 23, 1770, in the forty-ninth 
year of his age. 

Akenside is to be considered as a didactic and 
lyric poet. His great work is " The Pleasures 
of Imagination ;" a performance which, pub- 
lished as it was, at the age of twenty-three, 
raised expectations that were not very amply 
satisfied. It has undoubtedly a just claim to 
very particular notice, as an example of grea t 
felicity of genius, and uncommon amplitude of 
acquisitions, of a young mind stored with im- 
ages, and much exercised in combining and com- 
paring them. 

With the philosophical or religious tenets of 
the author I have nothing to do ; my business is 
with his poetry. The subject is well chosen, as 
it includes all images that can strike or please, 
and thus comprises every species of poetical de- 
light. The only difficulty is in the choice of 
examples and illustrations ; and it is not easy, 
in such exuberance of matter, to find the middls 
point between penury and satiety. The parts 
seem artificially disposed, with sufficient cohe- 
rence, so as that they cannot change their places 
without injury to the general design. 

His images are displayed with such luxuri- 
ance of expression, that they are hidden like 
Butler's moon, by a " veil of light ;" they are 
forms fantastically lost under superfluity of 
dress. Pars minima est ipsa paella sui. The 
words are multiplied till the sense is hardly 
perceived ; attention deserts the mind, and set- 
tles in the ear. The reader wanders through 
the gay diffusion, sometimes amazed, and some- 
times delighted, but, after many turnings in the 
flowery labyrinth, comes out as he went in. He 
remarked little, and laid hold on nothing. 

To his versification justice requires that praise 
should not be denied. In the general fabrica- 
tion of his lines he is, perhaps, superior to any 
other "writer of blank verse ; his flow is smooth, 
and his pauses are musical ; but the concatena- 
tion of his verses is commonly too long conti- 
nued, and the full close does not recur with suf- 
ficient frequency. The sense is carried on 
through a long intertexture of complicated 
clauses, and, as nothing is distinguished, no- 
thing is remembered. 

The exemption which blank verse affords from 
the necessity of closing the sense with the coup- 
let betrays luxuriant and active minds into such 
self-indulgence, that they pile image upon image, 



■G RAY, 



855 



ornament upon ornament, and are not easily- 
persuaded to close the sense at all. Blank verse 
will, therefore, I fear, be too often found in de- 
scription exuberant, in argument loquacious, 
and in narration tiresome. 

His diction is certainly poetical as it is not 
prosaic, and elegant as it is not vulgar. He is 
to be commended as having fewer artifices of 
disgust than most of his brethren of the blank 
song. He rarely either recalls old phrases, or 
twists his metre into harsh inversions. The 
sense, however, of his words is strained, when 
" he views the Ganges from Alpine heights ;" 
that is from mountains like the Alps. And the 
pedant surely intrudes (but when was blank 
verse without pedantry?) when he tells how 
" Planets absolve the stated round of Time." 

It is generally known to the readers of poetry 
that he intended to revise and augment this 
work, but died before he had completed his design. 
The reformed work as he left it, and the addi- 
tions which he had made, are very properly re- 
tained in the late collection. He seems to have 
somewhat contracted his diffusion ; but 1 know 
not whether he has gained in closeness what he 
has lost in splendour. In the additional book, 
" The Tale of Solon" is too long. 

One great defect of his poem is. very properly 
censured by Mr. Walker, unless it may be said, 
in his defence, that what he has omitted was 
not properly in his plan. His " picture of man 
is grand and beautiful, but unfinished. The 
immortality of the soul, which is the natural 
consequence of the appetites and powers she is 
invested with, is scarcely once hinted through- 
out the poem. This deficiency is amply sup- 
plied by the masterly pencil of Dr. Young; 
who, like a good philosopher, has invincibly 
proved the immortality of man, from the 



grandeur of his conceptions, and the meanness 
and misery of his state ; for this reason, a few 
passages are selected from the ' Night Thoughts,' 
which, with those of Akenside, seem to form a 
complete view of the powers, situation, and end 
of man." — < Exercises for Improvement in 
Elocution.' p. 66. 

His other poems are now to be considered ; 
but a short consideration will despatch them. 
It is not easy to guess why he addicted himself 
so diligently to lyric poetry, having neither the 
ease and airiness of the lighter, nor the vehe- 
mence and elevation of the grander ode. When 
he lays his ill-fated hand upon his harp, his 
former powers seem to desert him ; he has no 
longer his luxuriance of expression, nor variety 
of images. His thoughts are cold, and his 
words inelegant. Yet such was his love of 
lyrics, that, having written with great vigour 
and poignancy his " Epistle to Curio," he trans- 
formed it afterwards into an ode disgraceful 
only to its author. 

Of his odes nothing favourable can be said: 
the sentiments commonly want force, nature, 
or novelty; the diction is sometimes harsh and 
uncouth, the stanzas ill-constructed and unplea- 
sant, and the rhymes dissonant, or unskilfully 
disposed, too distant from each other, or ar- 
ranged with too little regard to established use, 
and therefore perplexing to the ear, which in a 
short composition has not time to grow familiar 
with an innovation. 

To examine such compositions singly cannot 
be required ; they have doubtless brighter and 
darker parts ; but when they are once found to 
be generally dull, all further labour may be 
spared ; for to what use can the work be criti- 
cised that will not be read ? 



GRAY, 



Thomas Gray, the son of Mr. Philip Gray, a 
scrivener of London, was born in Cornhill, 
November 26th, 1716. His grammatical edu- 
cation he received at Eton under the care of 
Mr. Antrobus, his mother's brother, then as- 
sistant to Dr. George; and when he left school, 
in 1734, entered a pensioner at Peterhouse in 
Cambridge. 

The transition from the school to the college 
is, to most young scholars, the time from which 
they date their years of manhood, liberty, and 



happiness; but Gray seems to have been very 
little delighted with academical qualifications; 
he liked at Cambridge neither the mode of life 
nor the fashion of study, and lived sullenly on 
to the time when his attendance on lectures 
was no longer required. As he intended to 
profess the common law, he took no degree. 

When he had been at Cambridge about five 
years, Mr. Horace Walpole, whose friendship 
he had gained at Eton, invited him to travel 
with him as his companion. They wandered 



356 



GRAY 



through France into Italy ; and Gray's " Let- 
ters" contain a very pleasing account of many 
parts of their journey. But unequal friendships 
are easily dissolved : at Florence they quarrelled, 
and parted ; and Mr. Walpole is now content to 
nave it told that it was hy his fault. If we look, 
however, without prejudice on the world, we 
shall find that men, whose consciousness of their 
own merit sets them ahove the compliances of 
servility, are apt enough in their association 
"with superiors to watch their own dignity with 
troublesome and punctilious jealousy, and in the 
fervour of independence to exact that attention 
which they refuse to pay. Part they did, what- 
ever was the quarrel; and the rest of their 
travels was doubtless more unpleasant to them 
both. Gray continued his journey in a manner 
suitable to his own little fortune, with only an 
occasional servant. . 

He returned to England in September, 1741, 
and in about two months afterwards buried his 
father, who had, by an injudicious waste of 
money upon a new house, so much lessened his 
fortune, that Gray thought himself too poor to 
study the law. He therefore retired to Cam- 
bridge, where he soon after became bachelor of 
civil law, and where, without liking the place 
or its inhabitants, or professing to like them, he 
passed, except a short residence at London, the 
rest of his life. 

About this time he was deprived of Mr. 
West, the son of a chancellor of Ireland, a friend 
on whom he appears to have set a high value, 
and who deserved his esteem by the powers 
which he shows in his letters, and in the " Ode 
to May," which Mr. Mason has preserved, as 
well as by the sincerity with which, when Gray 
sent him part of " Agrippina," a tragedy that 
he had just begun, he gave an opinion which 
probably intercepted the progress of the work, 
and which the judgment of every reader will 
confirm. It was certainly no loss to the English 
stage that " Agrippina" was never finished. 

In this year (1742) Gray seems to have applied 
himself seriously to poetry; for in this year were 
produced the " Ode to Spring," his " Prospect 
of Eton," and his " Ode to Adversity." He 
began likewise a Latin poem, " De Principiis 
Cogitandi." 

It may be collected from the narrative of Mr. 
Mason, that his first ambition was to have ex- 
celled in Latin poetry : perhaps it were reason- 
able to wish that he had prosecuted his design ; 
for, though there is at present some embarrass- 
ment in his phrase, and some harshness in his 
lyric numbers, his copiousness of language is 
such as very few possess ; and his lines, even 
when imperfect, discover a writer whom prac- 
tice would have made skilful. 

He now lived on at Peterhouse, very little 
solicitous what others did or thought, and culti- 
vated his mind and enlarged his views without 



any other purpose than of improving and amus- 
ing himself; when Mr. Mason,' being elected 
fellow of Pembroke Hall, brought him a com- 
panion who was afterwards to be his editor, and 
whose fondness and fidelity has kindled in him 
a zeal of admiration which cannot be reasonably 
expected from the neutrality of a stranger, and 
the coldness of a critic. 

In his retirement he wrote (1747) an ode on 
the " Death of Mr. Walpole's Cat;" and the 
year afterwards attempted a poem, of more im- 
portance, on " Government and Education," of 
which the fragments which remain have many 
excellent lines. 

His next production (1750) was his far-famed 
" Elegy in the Churchyard," which, finding its 
way into a magazine, first, I believe, made bim 
known to the public. 

An invitation from Lady Cobham about this 
time gave occasion to an odd composition called 
" A Long Story," which adds little to Gray's 
character. 

Several of his pieces were published (1753) 
with designs by Mr. Bentley: and that they 
might in some form or other make a book, only 
one side of each leaf was printed. I believe the 
poems and the plates recommended, each other 
so well, that the "whole impression was soon 
bought. This year he lost his mother. 

Some time afterwards (1756) some young men 
of the college, whose chambers were near his, 
diverted themselves with disturbing him by fre- 
quent and troublesome noises, and, as is said, 
by pranks yet more offensive and contemptuous. 
This insolence, having endured it awhile, he 
represented to the governors of the society, 
among whom perhaps he had no friends ; and, 
finding his complaint little regarded, removed 
himself to Pembroke Hall. 

In 1757 he published « The Progress of Poe- 
try," and " The Bard," two compositions at 
which the readers of poetry were at first content 
to gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried 
them confessed their inability to understand 
them, though Warburton said that they were 
understood as well as the works of Milton and 
Shakspeare, which it is the fashion to admire. 
Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Some 
hardy champions undertook to rescue them from 
neglect ; and in a short time many were con- 
tent to be shown beauties which they could not 
see. 

Gray's reputation was now so high, that, after 
the death of Cibber, he had the honour of re-, 
fusing the laurel, which was then bestowed on 
Mr. Whitehead. 

His curiosity, not long after, drew him away 
from Cambridge to a lodging near the Museum, 
where he resided near three years, reading and 
transcribing; and, so far as can be discovered, 
very little affected by two odes on " Oblivion" 
and " Obscurity," in which his lyric perform- 



\ x 



GRAY. 



357 



ances were ridiculed with much contempt and 
much ingenuity. 

When the professor of modern history at Cam- 
bridge died, he was, as he says, " cockered and 
spirited up," till he asked it of Lord Bute, who 
sent him a civil refusal; and the place was 
given to Mr. Bi'ocket, the tutor of Sir James 
Lowther. 

His constitution was weak, and, believing 
that his health was promoted by exercise and 
change of place, he undertook (1765) a journey 
into Scotland, of which his account, so far as it 
extends, is very curious and elegant : for, as his 
comprehension was ample, his curiosity extend- 
ed to all the works of art, all the appearances of 
nature, and all the monuments of past events. 
He naturally contracted a friendship with Dr. 
Beattie, whom he found a poet, a philosopher, 
and a good man. The Mareschal College at 
Aberdeen offered him the degree of doctor of 
laws, which, having omitted to take it at Cam- 
bridge, he thought it decent to refuse. 

What he had formerly solicited in vain was 
at last given him without solicitation. The 
professorship of history became again vacant, 
and he received (1768) an offer of it from the 
Duke of Grafton. He accepted and retained it 
to his death ; always designing lectures, but 
never appearing reading them ; uneasy at his 
neglect of duty, and appeasing his uneasiness 
with designs of reformation, and with a resolu- 
tion which he believed himself to have made of 
resigning the office, if he found himself unable 
to discharge it. 

Ill health made another journey necessary, 
and he visited (1769) Westmoreland and Cum- 
berland. He that reads his epistolary narration 
wishes, that to travel, and to tell his travels, 
had been more of his employment ; but it is by 
studying at home that we must obtain the abi- 
lity of travelling with intelligence and improve- 
ment. 

His travels and his studies were now near 
their end. The gout, of which he had sustained 
many weak attacks, fell upon his stomach, and, 
yielding to no medicines, produced strong con- 
vulsions, which (July 30, 1771) terminated in 
death. 

His character I am willing to adopt, as Mr. 
Mason has done, from a letter written to my 
friend Mr. Boswell, by the Bev. Mr. Temple, 
rector of St. Gluvias in Cornwall ; and am as 
willing as his warmest well-wisher to believe it 
true. 

" Peihaps he was the most learned man in 
Europe. He was equally acquainted with the 
elegant and profound parts of science, and that 
not superficially, but thoroughly. He knew 
every branch of history, both natural and civil ; 
had read all the original histoi'ians of England, 
France, and Italy ; and was a great antiquari- 
an. Criticism, metaphysics, morals, politics, 



made a principal part of his study ; voyages and 
travels of all sorts were his favourite amuse- 
ments; and he had a fine taste in painting, 
prints, architecture, and gardening. With such 
a fund of knowledge, his conversation must have 
been equally instructing and entertaining ; but 
he was also a good man, a man of virtue and hu- 
manity. There is no character without some 
speck, some imperfection ; and I think the 
greatest defect in his, was an affectation in deli- 
cacy, or rather effeminacy, and a visible fastidi- 
ousness, or contempt and disdain of his inferiors 
in science. He also had, in some degree, that 
weakness which disgusted Voltaire so much in 
Mr. Congreve : though he seemed to value 
others chiefly according to the progress that they 
had made in knowledge, yet he could not bear 
to be considered merely as a man of letters ; and, 
though without birth, or fortune, or station, his 
desire was to be looked upon as a private inde- 
pendent gentleman, who read for his amuse- 
ment. Perhaps it may be said, What signifies 
so mueh knowledge, when it produced so little ? 
Is it worth taking so much pains to leave no 
memorials but a few poems ? But let it be con- 
sidered that Mr. Gray was to others at least in- 
nocently employed ; to .himself certainly benefi- 
cially. His time passed agreeably : he was 
every day making some new acquisition in sci- 
ence ; his mind was enlarged, his heart softened, 
his virtue strengthened ; the world and mankind 
were shown to him without a mask; and he 
was taught to consider every thing as trifling, 
and unworthy of the attention of a wise man, 
except the pursuit of knowledge and practice of 
virtue, in that state wherein God hath placed 
us." 

To this character Mr. Mason has added a 
more particular account of Gray's skill in zoo- 
logy. He has remarked that Gray's effeminacy 
was affected most " before those whom he did 
not wish to please;" and that he is unjustly 
charged with making knowledge his sole reason 
of preference, as he paid his esteem to none 
whom he did not likewise believe to be good. 

What has occurred to me from the slight in- 
spection of his Letters in which my undertak- 
ing has engaged me is, that his mind had a large 
grasp ; that his curiosity was unlimited, and his 
judgment cultivated ; that he was a man likely 
to love much where he loved at all ; but that he 
was fastidious and hard to please. His con- 
tempt, however, is often employed where I hope 
it will be approved, upon scepticism and infi- 
delity. His short account of Shaftesbury I 
will insert. 

" You say you cannot conceive how Lord 
Shaftesbury came to be a philosopher in vogue ; 
I will tell you ; first, he was a lord ; secondly, 
he was as vain as any of his readers ; thirdly, 
men are very prone to believe what they do not 
understand ; fourthly, they will believe any 
Z a 



358 



GRAY. 



thing at all, provided they are under no obliga- 
tion to believe it ; fifthly, they love to take a 
new road, even when that road leads no where ; 
sixthly, he was reckoned a fine writer, and 
seems always to mean more than he said. 
Would you have any more reasons? An inter- 
val of above forty years has pretty well de- 
stroyed the charm. A dead lord ranks with 
commoners; vanity is no longer interested in 
the matter ; for a new road has become an old 
one." 

Mr. Mason has added, from his own know- 
ledge, that, though Gray was poor, he was not 
eager of money ; and that, out of the little 
that he had, he was very willing to help the 
necessitous. 

As a writer he had this peculiarity, that he 
did not write his pieces first rudely, and then 
correct them, but laboured every line as it arose 
in the train of composition ; and he had a no- 
tion not very peculiar, that he could not write 
but at certain times, or at happy moments ; a 
fantastic foppery, to which my kindness for a 
man of learning and virtue wishes him to have 
been superior. 

Gray's poetry is now to be considered ; and I 
hope not to be looked on as an enemy to his 
name, if I confess that I contemplate it with 
less pleasure than his life. 

His ode " On Spring" has something poeti- 
cal, both in the language and the thought ; but 
the language is too luxuriant, and the thoughts 
have nothing new. There has of late arisen a 
practice of giving to adjectives derived from sub- 
stantives the termination of participles ; such as 
the cultured plain, the daisied bank ; but I was 
sorry to see, in the lines of a scholar like Gray, 
the honied Spring. The morality is natural, 
but too stale ; the conclusion is pretty. 

The poem " On the Cat" was doubtless by 
its Author considered as a trifle ; but it is not a 
happy trifle. In the first stanza, " the azure 
flowers that blow" show resolutely a rhyme is 
sometimes made when it cannot easily be found. 
Selima, the Cat, is called a nymph, with some 
violence both to language and sense ; but there 
is no good use made of it when it is done ; for 
of the two lines, 

What female heart can gold despise 1 
What cat's averse to fish? 

the first relates merely to the nymph, and the 
second only to the cat. The sixth stanza con- 
tains a melancholy truth, that " a favourite has 
no friend ;" but the last ends in a pointed sen- 
tence of no relation to the purpose ; if what glis- 
tered had been gold, the cat would not have gone 
into the water ; and, if she had, would not less 
have been drowned. 

The " Prospect of Eton College" suggests 
nothing to Gray which every beholder does not 
equally think and feel. His supplication to fa- 



ther Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop 
or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Fa- 
ther Thames has no better means of knowing 
than himself. His epithet " buxom health" is 
not elegant; he seems not to understand the 
word. Gray thought his language more poeti- 
cal as it was more remote from common use; 
finding in Dryden " honey redolent of Spring," 
an expression that reaches the utmost limits of 
our language, Gray drove it a little more be- 
yond common apprehension, by making "gales" 
to be " redolent of joy and youth." 

Of the " Ode on Adversity" the hint was at 
first taken from " O Diva, gratum quae regis 
Antium:" but Gray has excelled his original 
by the variety of his sentiments, and by their 
moral application. Of this piece, at once poeti- 
cal and rational, I will not, by slight objections, 
violate the dignity. 

My process has now brought me to the won- 
derfid " Wonder of Wonders," the two Sister 
Odes, by which, though either vulgar ignorance 
or common sense at first universally rejected 
them, many have been since persuaded to think 
themselves delighted. I am one of those that 
are willing to be pleased, and therefore would 
gladly find the meaning of the first stanza of 
" The Progress of Poetry." 

Gray seems in his rapture to confound the. 
images of " spreading sound and running wa- 
ter." A " stream of music" may be allowed; 
but where does " music," however " smooth 
and strong," after having visited the " verdant 
vales, roll down the steep amain," so as that 
" rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the 
roar?" If this be said of music, it is nonsense ; 
if it be said of water, it is nothing to the 
purpose. 

The second stanza, exhibiting Mar's car and 
Jove's eagle, is unworthy of further notice. 
Criticism disdains to chase a school-boy to his 
common- places. 

To the third it may likewise be objected, that 
it is drawn from 'mythology, though such as 
may be more easily assimilated to real life. 
Idalia's "velvet green" has something of cant. 
An epithet or metaphor drawn from Nature 
ennobles Art ; an epithet or metaphor drawn 
from Art degrades Nature. Gray is too fond 
of words arbitrarily compounded. " Many- 
twinkling" was formerly censured as not ana- 
logical; we may say " many spotted," but 
scarcely " many spotting." This stanza, how- 
ever, has something pleasing. 

Of the second ternary of stanzas, the first en- 
deavours to tell something, and would have told 
it, had it not been crossed by Hyperion : the 
second describes well enough the universal pre- 
valence of poetry ; but I am afraid that the 
conclusion will not arise from the premises. 
The caverns of the North and the plains of Chili 
are not the residences of " Glory and generous 



GRAY. 



359 



Shame." But that Poetry and Virtue goal- 
ways together is an opinion so pleasing, that I 
can forgive him who resolves to think it true. 

The third stanza sounds big with " Delphi," 
and " Egean," and " Ilissus," and " Meander," 
and " hallowed fountains," and " solemn 
eound ;" but in all Gray's odes there is a kind 
of cumbrous splendour which we wish away. 
His position is at last false : in the time of Dante 
and Petrarch, from whom we derive our first 
school of Poetry, Italy was overrun by " tyrant 
power ;" and " coward vice;" nor was our state 
much better when we first borrowed the Italian 
arts. 

Of the third ternary, the first gives a mytho- 
logical birth of Shakspeare. What is said of 
that mighty genius is true; but it is not said 
happily : the real effects of this poetical power 
are put out of sight by the pomp of machinery. 
Where truth is sufficient to fill the mind, fiction 
is worse than useless; the counterfeit debases 
the genuine. 

His account of Milton's blindness, if we sup- 
pose it caused by study in the formation of his 
poem, a supposition surely allowable, is poetical- 
ly true, and happily imagined. But the car of 
Dryden, with his two coursers, has nothing in it 
peculiar ; it is a car in which any other rider 
may be placed. 

" The Bard" appears, at the first view, to be, 
as Algarotti and others have remarked, an imi- 
tation of the prophecy of Nereus. Algarotti 
thinks it superior to its original ; and, if prefer- 
ence depends only on the imagery and animation 
of the two poems, his judgment is right. There 
is in " The Bard" more force, more thought, 
and more variety. But to copy is less than to 
invent, and the copy has been unhappily pro- 
duced at a wrong time. The fiction of Horace 
was to the Romans credible ; but its revival dis- 
gusts us with apparent and unconquerable false- 
hood. Incredulus odi. 

To select a singular event, and swell it to a 
giant's bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres 
and predictions, has little difficulty; for he that 
forsakes the probable may always find the mar- 
vellous. And it has little use ; we are affected 
only as we believe ; we are improved only as we 
find something to be imitated or declined. I do 
not see that " The Bard" promotes any truth, 
moral or political. 

His stanzas are too long, especially his epodes; 
the ode is finished before the ear has learned its 
measures, and consequently before it can receive 
pleasure from their consonance and recurrence. 

Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has 
been celebrated : but technical beauties can give 
praise only to the inventor. It is in the power 
of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject, 
that has read the ballad of " Johnny Arm- 
strong," 

Is there ever a man in all Scotland— 



The initial resemblances, or alliterations, 
" ruin, ruthless, helm or hauberk," are below 
the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at 
sublimity. 

In the second stanza the Bard is well describ- 
ed ; but in the third we have the puerilities of 
obsolete mythology. When we are told that 
" Cadwallo hush'd the stormy main," and that 
" Modred made huge Plinlimmon bow his 
cloud-topp'd head," attention recoils from the 
repetition of a tale that, even when it was first 
heard, was heard with scorn. 

The weaving of the ivinding sheet he borrowed, 
as he owns, from the Northern Bards : but then* 
texture, however, was very properly the work 
of female powers, as the act of spinning the 
thread of life is another mythology. Theft is 
always dangerous ; Gray has made weavers of 
slaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and 
incongruous. They are then called upon to 
" Weave the warp, and weave the woof," per- 
haps with no great propriety ; for it is by cross- 
ing the woof with the warp that men weave the 
web or piece ; and the first line was dearly bought 
by the admission of its wretched correspondent, 
" Give ample room and verge enough."* He 
has, however, no other line as bad. 

The third stanza of the second ternary is com- 
mended, I think, beyond its merit. The per- 
sonification is indistinct. Thirst and Hunger 
are not alike ; and their features, to make the 
imagery perfect, should have been discriminated. 
We are told, in the same stanza, how " towers 
are fed." But I will no longer look for par- 
ticular faults ; yet let it be observed that the ode 
might have been concluded with an action of 
better example ; but suicide is always to be had, 
without expense of thought. 

These odes are marked by glittering accumu- 
lations of ungraceful ornaments ; they strike, 
rather than please ; the images are magnified by 
affectation ; the language is laboured into harsh- 
ness. The mind of the writer seems to work 
with unnatural violence. " Double, double, 
toil and trouble." He has a kind of strutting 
dignity, and is tall by walking on tiptoe. His 
art and his struggle are too visible, and there is 
too little appearance of ease and nature, f, 

To say that he had no beauties, would be un- 
just ; a man like him, of great learning and great 
industry, could not but produce something val- 
uable. When he pleases least, it can only be 
said that a good design was ill directed. 

His translations of Northern and Welsh 



* " I have a soul, that like an ample shield 
Can take in all ; and verge enough for more." 
Dryden's Sebastian, 
t Lord Orford used to assert, that Gray " never 
wrote any thing easily, but things of humour:" and 
added, that humour was his natural and original 
turn. — C. 



360 



LYTTELTON. 



Poetry deserve praise ; the imagery is preserved, 
perhaps often improved ; hut the language is un- 
like the language of other poets. 

In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to con- 
cur with the common reader ; for hy the com- 
mon sense of readers, uncorrupted with literary 
prejudices, after all the refinements of subtilty 
and the dogmatism of learning, must be finally 
decided all claim to poetical honours. The 



" Church-yard" abounds with images which 
find a mirror in every mind, and with senti- 
ments to which every bosom returns an echo. 
The four stanzas, beginning " Yet even these 
bones," are to me original : I have never seen 
the notions in any other place ; yet he that reads 
them here persuades himself that he has always 
felt them. Had Gray written often thus, it had 
been vain to blame, and useless to praise him. 



LYTTELTON. 



George Lyttelton, the son of Sir Thomas 
Lyttelton, of Hagley, in "Worcestershire, was 
born in 1709. He was educated at Eton, where 
he was so much distinguished, that his exercises 
were recommended as models to his school-fel- 
lows. 

From Eton he went to Christ-church, where 
he retained the same reputation of superiority, 
and displayed his abilities to the public in a poem 
on " Blenheim." 

He was a very early writer, both in verse and 
prose. His " Progress of Love," and his 
" Persian Letters," were both written when he 
was very young ; and indeed the character of a 
young man is very visible in both. The Verses 
cant of shepherds and flocks, and crooks dressed 
with flowers ; and the Letters have something 
of that indistinct and headstrong ardour for 
liberty which a man of genius always catches 
when he enters the world, and always suffers to 
cool as he passes forward. 

He stayed not long in Oxford ; for in 1728 he 
began his travels, and saw France and Italy. 
When he returned, he obtained a seat in parlia- 
ment, and soon distinguished himself among 
the most eager opponents of Sir Robert Wal- 
pole, though his father, who was commission- 
er of the admiralty, always voted with the 
court. 

For many years the n ame of George Lyttel- 
ton was seen in every account of every debate in 
the House of Commons. He opposed the stand- 
ing army ; he opposed the excise; he supported 
the motion for petitioning the King to remove 
Walpole. His zeal was considered by the cour- 
tiers not only as violent, but as acrimonious 



and malignant ; and when Walpole was at 
last hunted from his places, every effort was 
made by his Mends, and many friends he had, 
to exclude Lyttelton from the secret commit- 
tee. 

The Prince of Wales, being (1737) driven 
from St. James's, kept a separate court, and 
opened his arms to the opponents of the minis- 
try. Mr. Lyttelton became his secretary, and 
was supposed to have great influence in the di- 
rection of his conduct. He persuaded his mas- 
ter, whose business it was now to be popular, 
that he would advance his character by patron- 
age. Mallet was made under-secretary with 
two hundred pounds; and Thomson had a pen- 
sion of one hundred pounds a year. For 
Thomson, Lyttelton always retained his kind- 
ness, and was able at last to place him at 
ease. 

Moore courted his favour by an apologetical 
poem, called " The Trial of Selim ;" for which 
he was paid with kind words, which, as is com- 
mon, raised great hopes, that were at last dis- 
appointed. 

Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of op. 
position ; and Pope, who was incited, it is not 
easy to say how, to increase the clamour against 
the ministry, commended him among the other 
patriots. This drew upon him the reproaches or 
Fox, who, in the house, imputed to him as a 
crime his intimacy with a lampooner so unjust 
and licentious. Lyttelton supported his friend ; 
and replied, that he thought it an honour to 
be received into the familiarity of so great a 
poet. 

While he was thus conspicuous, he married 



LYTTELTON. 



361 



(1741) Miss Lucy Fortescue of Devonshire, 
by whom he had a son, the late Lord Lyttel- 
ton, and two daughters, and with whom he 
appears to have lived in the highest degree 
of connubial felicity: but human pleasures are 
short : she died in childbed about five years af- 
terwards ; and he solaced himself by writing a 
long poem to her memory. 

He did not, however, condemn himself to 
perpetual solitude and sorrow ; for, after a 
while he was content to seek happiness again 
by a second marriage with the daughter of Sir 
Robert Rich ; but the experiment was unsuc- 
cessful. 

At length, after a long struggle, Walpole gave 
way, and honour and profit were distributed 
.among his conquerors. Lyttelton was made 
(1744) one of the Lords of the Treasury; and 
from that time was engaged in supporting the 
schemes of the ministry. 

Politics did not, however, so much engage 
him as to withhold his thoughts from things of 
more importance. He had, in the pride of 
juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt 
conversation, entertained doubts of the truth of 
Christianity ; but he thought the time now come 
when it was no longer fit to doubt or believe by 
chance, and applied himself seriously to the 
great question. His studies being honest, ended 
in conviction. He found that religion was true ; 
and what he had learned he endeavoured to 
teach (1747) by " Observations on the Conver- 
sion of St. Paul;" a treatise to which infidelity 
has never been able to fabricate a specious an- 
swer. This book his father had the happiness 
of seeing, and expressed his pleasure in a letter 
which deserves to be inserted. 

" I have read your religious treatise with in- 
finite pleasure and satisfaction. The style is 
fine and clear, the arguments close, cogent, and 
irresistible. May the King of kings, whose 
glorious cause you have so well defended, reward 
your pious labours, and grant that I may be 
found worthy, through the merits of Jesus 
Christ, to be an eye-witness of that happiness 
which I don't doubt he will bountifully bestow 
upon you. In the mean time, I shall never 
cease glorifying God, for having endowed you 
with such useful talents, and giving me so good 
a son. 

Your affectionate father, 

Thomas Lyttelton." 

A few years afterwards, (1751) by the death 
of his father, he inherited a baronet's title with 
a large estate, which, though perhaps he did not 
augment, he was careful to adorn, by a house of 
great elegance and expense, and by much atten- 
tion to the decoration of his park. 

As he continued his activity in parliament, he 



was gradually advancing his claim to profit and 
preferment ; and accordingly was made in time 
(1754) cofferer and privy counsellor: this place 
he exchanged next year for the great office of 
chancellor of the Exchequer ; an office, however, 
that required some qualifications which he soon 
perceived himself to want. 

The year after, his curiosity led him into 
Wales ; of which he has given an account, per- 
haps rather with too much affectation of delight, 
to Archibald Bower, a man of whom he had 
conceived an opinion more favourable than he 
seems to have deserved, and whom, having once 
espoused his interest and fame, he was never 
persuaded to disown. Bower, whatever was 
his moral character, did not want abilities ; at- 
tacked as he was by a universal outcry, and 
that outcry, as it seems, the echo of truth, he 
kept his ground ; at last, when his defences be- 
gan to fail him, he sallied out upon his adver- 
saries, and his adversaries retreated. 

About this time Lyttelton published his 
" Dialogues of the Dead," which were very 
eagerly read, though the production rather, as it 
seems, of leisure than of study : rather effusions 
than compositions. The names of his persons 
too often enable the reader to anticipate their 
conversation ; and when they have metr they 
too often part without any conclusion. He has 
copied Fenelon more than Fontenelle. 

When they were first published, they were 
kindly commended by the " Critical Review- 
ers:" and poor Lyttelton, with humble grati- 
tude, returned in a note which I have read, ac- 
knowledgments which can never be proper, 
since fhey must be paid either for flattery or for 
justice. 

When, in the latter part of the last reign, the 
inauspicious commencement of the war made 
the dissolution of the ministry unavoidable, Sir 
George Lyttelton, losing with the rest his em- 
ployment, was recompensed with a peerage ; 
and rested from political turbulence in the 
House of Lords. 

His last literary production was his " Histoiy 
of Henry the Second," elaborated by the searches 
and deliberations of twenty years, and pub- 
lished with such anxiety as vanity can dic- 
tate. 

The story of this publication is remarkable. 
The whole work was printed twice over, a great 
part of it three times, and many sheets four or 
five times. The booksellers paid for the first 
impression ; but the charges and repeated opera- 
tions of the press were at the expense of the 
author, whose ambitious accuracy is known to 
have cost him at least a thousand pounds. He 
began to print in 1755. Three volumes appear- 
ed in 1764, a second edition of them in 1767, a 
third edition in 1768, and the conclusion in 
1771. 



362 



LYTTELTON. 



Andrew Reid, a man not without considerable 
abilities, and not unacquainted with letters or 
with life, undertook to persuade Lyttelton, as 
he had persuaded himself, that he was master of 
the secret of punctuation ; and, as fear begets 
credulity, he was employed, I know not at what 
price, to point the pages of " Henry the Second," 
The book was at last pointed and printed, and 
sent into the world. Lyttelton took money for 
his copy, of which, when he had paid the printer, 
he probably gave the rest away ; for he was very 
liberal to the indigent. 

When time brought the History to a third 
edition, Reid was either dead or discarded; and 
the superintendence of typography and punctua- 
tion was committed to a man originally a comb- 
maker, but then known by the style of Doctor. 
Something uncommon was probably expected, 
and something uncommon was at last done ; for 
to the Doctor's edition is appended, what the 
world had hardly seen before, a list of errors in 
nineteen pages. 

But to politics and literature there must be an 
end. Lord Lyttelton had never the appearance 
of a strong or of a healthy man ; he had a slen- 
der uncompacted frame, and a meagre face ; he 
lasted however sixty years, and was then seized 
with his last illness. Of his death a very affect- 
ing and instructive account has been given by 
his physician, which will spare me the task of 
bis moral character. 

"On Sunday evening the symptoms of his 
Lordship's disorder, which for a week past had 
alarmed us, put on a fatal appearance, and his 
Lordship believed himself to be a dying man. 
From this time he suffered by restlessness ra- 
ther than pain ; though his nerves were ap- 
parently much fluttered, his mental faculties 
never seemed stronger, when he was thoroughly 
awake. 

" His Lordship's bilious and hepatic com- 
plaints seemed alone not equal to the expected 
mournful event ; his long want of sleep, whe- 
ther the consequence of the irritation in the 
bowels, or, which is more probable, of causes of 
a different kind, accounts for his loss of strength, 
and for his death, very sufficiently. 

" Though his Lordship wished his approach- 
ing dissolution not to be lingering, he wait- 
ed for it with resignation. He said, ' It is a 
/oily, a keeping me in misery, now to attempt 
to prolong life ;' yet he was easily persuaded, 
for the satisfaction of others, to do or take 
any thing thought proper for him. On Sa- 
turday he had been remarkably better, and 
we were not without some hopes of his re- 
covery. 

" On Sunday, about eleven in the forenoon, 
his Lordship sent for me, and said he felt a great 
flurry, and wished to have a little conversation 
with me in order to divert it. He then pro- 



ceeded to open the fountain of that heart, from 
whence goodness had so long flowed, as from a 
copious spring. ' Doctor,' said he, ' you shall 
be my confessor : when I first set out in the 
world, I had friends who endeavoured to shake 
my belief in the Christian religion. I saw dif- 
ficulties which staggered me ; but I kept my 
mind open to conviction. The evidences and 
doctrines of Christianity, studied with atten- 
tion, made me a most firm and persuaded be- 
liever of the Christian religion. I have made it 
the rule of my life, and it is the ground of my 
future hopes. I have erred and sinned ; but 
have repented, and never indulged any vicious 
habit. In politics, and public life, I have made 
public good the rule of my conduct. I never 
gave counsels which I did not at the time think 
best. I have seen that I was sometimes in the 
wrong, but I did not err designedly. I have 
endeavoured, in private life, to do all the good 
in my power, and never for a moment could in- 
dulge malicious or unjust designs upon any per- 
son whatsoever. ' 

" At another time he said, ' I must leave my 
soul in the same state it was in before this ill- 
ness ; I find this a very inconvenient time for 
solicitude about any thing. 

" On the evening, when the symptoms of 
death came on, he said, c I shall die ; but it will 
not be your fault. ' When Lord and Lady Va- 
lentia came to see his Lordship, he gave them 
his solemn benediction, and said, ' Be good, be 
virtuous, my Lord; you must come to this.' 
Thus he continued giving his dying benediction 
to all around him. On Monday morning a lu- 
cid interval gave some small hopes, but these 
vanished in the evening ; and he continued dy- 
ing, but with very little uneasiness, till Tues- 
day morning, August 22, when between seven 
and eight o'clock he expired, almost without a 
groan." 

His Lordship was buried at Hagley ; and the 
following inscription is cut on the side of his 
Lady's monument : 

This unadorned stone was placed here 
By the particular desire and express 
Directions of the Eight Honourable 

George Lord Lyttelton, 
Who died August 22, 1773, aged 64. 

Lord Lyttelton's Poems are the works of a 
man of literature and judgment, devoting part 
of his time to versification. They have nothing 
to be despised, and little to be admired. Of his 
" Progress of Love," it is sufficient blame to 
say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in 
" Blenheim" has neither much force nor much 
elegance. His little performances, whether 
songs or epigrams, are sometimes sprightly, and 
sometimes insipid. His epistolary pieces have 



LYTTELTON. 



3G3 



a smooth equability, which cannot much tire, 
because they ai'e short, but which seldom ele- 
vates or surprises. But from this censure 
ought to be excepted his " Advice to Belinda," 
which, though for the most part written when 



he was very young, contains much truth and 
much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously 
expressed, and shows a mind attentive to liffe, 
and a power of poetry which cultivation might 
have raised to excellence. 



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